I been having some very frustrating issues with getting .htaccess to work on my new server. I'm not very experienced in managing a server, but I've spent the last three days pouring over documentation and every resource I can get my hands on.

I've attempted to try a very basic application of .htaccess, and yet it fails to give the expected results. I've setup a test over at http://173.201.185.217/test/. Immediately within this directory is an .htaccess file with the following command:

deny from all

If I'm not mistaken, this should deny access to /test, but it doesn't. It just sits there allowing anybody to view the contents.

What could be wrong with my server/configuration? The server is running CentOS.