Setting up HTTPS w/subdomain on Apache2

[Anthony Yarusso]

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I'm working on reading through Apache documentation, but the going is
slow, so if anybody would like to kickstart me or give pointers that
would be fabulous.

I'm trying to set up the following:
https://subdomain.host.com/, which points to a directory on the same
physical machine (/var/www/subdomain say), with the following
characteristics:

Secure authentication
Secure data transfer

So far I've learned about Basic Authentication, but it said that the
password is transmitted in plaintext.  Then there was Digest, but the
data is still unencrypted.  The docs recommended using SSL, and unless
I'm mistaken, HTTP w/SSL = HTTPS.  So, I'm hoping to make this
particular directory accessible only with supplying a valid username
and password, and have both the password and the data returned travel
the connection in encrypted form.  The virtual subdomain is a wishlist
item primarily.

Note: this ONLY needs to apply to a particular directory; I want the
rest of the site accessible normally with unauthenticated http.

Any tips?
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