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PayPal and IPN (Instant Payment Notification)

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    PayPal and IPN (Instant Payment Notification)

    I am investigating using a shopping cart and receiving payments via PayPal.

    The PayPal stuff is a bit of a headache to wade through, but I have made a basic cart in A5 that I add multiple items to and have a "Buy Now" button that takes me to the PayPal sandbox (a test area) and populates the invoice as required.

    However, I do not understand what I need to do to implement a listener a5w page to handle IPN (Instant Payment Notification). Obviously PayPal sends a request to that page (even though I have not yet discovered how PayPal knows the URL) and the AppServer needs to somehow send a response. There is sample code available for various programming but of course nothing for Alpha. The VB does not help me much at this stage, but maybe with a hint or two from someone will set me in the right direction.

    Lenny, maybe this is an old problem with some pointers you can share?

    #2
    Re: PayPal and IPN (Instant Payment Notification)

    If you like the shopping cart at www.alphatogo.com, you can beta that as a drop in cart for your application. It has all the IPN stuff built in. Its more complex than just a listening page that responds. PP requires a bit more back-and-forth acknowledgement in the process. Plus the cart has a transaction log, registration license server, emails to buyer/seller, etc. Wendy Welton (on this forum) has implemented it in her application and even modified it to fit a non-standard multiple-buy buttons per record.
    Steve Wood
    See my profile on IADN

    Comment


      #3
      Re: PayPal and IPN (Instant Payment Notification)

      After some distractions I am looking at this again.
      The AS is working on port 8081. I have created a page "listener.a5w" which when I test from another PC in the outside world in Alpha interactive window with http_post_page2(myurl,body) it works. I have set-up listener.a5w to send a return which is:

      ?request.body

      and get the expected result. However I cannot get it to work on port 80, which is probably due to my ISP. When I test from thePayPal sandbox (on port 8081), I do not get a response according to Payal.

      Has anyone else experienced this and figured out what is going wrong? Does PayPal IPN only work on port 80?

      Comment


        #4
        Re: PayPal and IPN (Instant Payment Notification)

        Well I tested PayPal IPN on a server that has a SSL certificate and port 80 open my code snippet works.
        PayPal IPN only works on port 80 or port 443 when using SSL.
        After several phone calls to my ISP it seems they block port 80 and will not unblock it.
        Port forwarding from No-IP.com where I re-direct from port 80 to 8081 on my AS also does not work with PayPal IPN (even though it works for general browsing).
        Is there a workaround?

        Comment


          #5
          Re: PayPal and IPN (Instant Payment Notification)

          get a new isp ;-)
          Tim Kiebert
          Eagle Creek Citrus
          A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.

          Comment


            #6
            Re: PayPal and IPN (Instant Payment Notification)

            This is probably obvious, but if you are trying to use your home or office based PC as a server, just be cautious opening up port 80. That instantly opens you up to hacking attempts, you will see them within a day if you turn on logging. Most of us use our home or office computers to store our banking, financial records, passwords, family stuff, etc. Your home computer also is not a hardened server OS like Win2003 or 2008, not intended to be used as a server. Hackers will bypass your firewall because port 80 is a direct link to your webroot. I don't know if my ISP (Earthlink) blocks any ports.

            Note, try www.grc.com and ShieldsUP to test for your open ports.
            Steve Wood
            See my profile on IADN

            Comment


              #7
              Re: PayPal and IPN (Instant Payment Notification)

              Hi Steve,
              Thank you for your comments.
              Testing confirms that port 80 is blocked. Opening port 80 is not an option with my ISP. I do not understand why the port forwarding via No-IP does not work but I will take this up with PayPal and maybe they can offer some suggestions. I only want to test. The planned app will be professionally hosted by say Zebrahost.
              If it is of any consequence, my server is SBS2003.

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