Using Open Door's Commerce Server

Provide your browsers with secure transactions!

What is a Commerce Server? A commerce server is a special web server that will ensure the secure transfer of informaton over the Internet. Information read from and sent to the commerce server is encrypted using the secure sockets layer (ssl) protocol, and thus can not be read by someone "spying" on the transaction.

Why would I need to use the Commerce Server? Open Door's Commerce Server is available to all WebDoor Pro account holders. However, only those accounts needing information to be transferred securely, such as credit card numbers, are recommended to use this server.

How is the commerce server set up? The commerce server runs on the same Macintosh as the web server used for most WebDoor Pro accounts (www2.opendoor.com). It functions in all respects just like the standard web server running on that Macintosh, and provides access to the same set of folders. The only difference is that access is obtained through a URL of the form https://ssl.opendoor.com/account/. Any access of this form will be secure.

What do I need to do to use the Commerce Server? First you must specifically request that we give you access to the server, since we need to set up the appropriate security. Next Decide what secure information you'd like your clients to send or receive via Open Door's commerce server. In most cases, you'll need to create a form that tells a program running on the commerce server to process the form data in a secure manner. This program is called a CGI (Common Gateway Interface). The CGI running on Open Door's commerce server writes the information entered into the form to your folder on the web server by creating or adding onto a file entitled SSLData.txt in your Stats folder. (Your stats folder is used because it's already password-protected, making it so that only you can get at the data). The information is written in the same format as Open Door's standard form processing CGI, but is not sent to you via e-mail, which would be insecure and thus defeat the purpose of the commerce server.

Once the data entered is written to the file, You'll then be able to access this data through the commerce server itself and securely retrieve your orders, information etc.

Want to know more?

Follow the steps listed below to create your form
(Sorry, the commerce server is not currently supported by WebDoor Publisher, so you'll need to write at least some part of the HTML yourself):

• Write the appropriate HTML for your form. Be sure to include a "submit" element. In the "FORM" tag, include the following:
  
  <FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="https://ssl.opendoor.com/CGI/WebDoorSSL.cgi">

• You must include a "hidden form element" which tells Open Door's CGI that your page was not created using WebDoor Publisher:
  
  <INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="WDversion" VALUE="Custom your-version">
  
  You can replace "your-version" with any desried indicator. Be sure it begins "Custom..."

• You must include a "hidden form element" which tells Open Door's CGI the folder to send the form data to:
  
  <INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="WebDoorSSLRecipient" VALUE="YourAccountName">
  
  "YourAccountName" should be the exact name you requested for your WebDoor Pro account (i.e- if your account name is MyAccount then input MyAccount as the VALUE).

• You must include a "hidden form element" which tells Open Door's CGI the URL of the page to open after the form is processed (that is, after the browser hits the "submit" button):
  
  <INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="WebDoorNextLink" VALUE="your-URL">
  
  "your-URL" must be a fully specified URL and must be accessed through the secure server, for instance https://ssl.opendoor.com/YourAccountName/YourNextFile.html

• Drag the .html file you've created to your folder on the "Open Door Web Pages 2" AppleShare server, or copy the file to ftp2.opendoor.com via FTP.

• Connect to the Internet and test the form to make sure it works correctly. You can test the individual form elements on your local hard disk. Note: you can only test the form's data transfer, and its linking to another page, over the Internet.

Follow the steps listed below for testing:

• Access your form via the below URL address (make sure you're always using full URLs NO RELATIVE LINKS). You may receive a window stating "You have requested a secure document. Click OK." https://ssl.opendoor.com/YourAccountName/YourFormName.html
  (NOTE: replace YourAccountName with your Open Door Account Name and YourFormName.html with the .html form name you've created.)

• Fill out the form. Click submit.

• You should receive the correct Next Link URL. Make sure your next link is not a Relative link and begins:
  https://ssl.opendoor.com/YourAccountName/YourNextLink.html
  (this will ensure the information is secure.)

Follow the steps listed below to retrieve your secure form information:

• Open https://ssl.opendoor.com/YourAccountName/Stats/SSLData.txt You are required to enter your name and password.

• The above URL will securely retrieve all data which has been entered into your secure form(s), providing you have entered the correct Account Name and password. Your account name and password are the same as for your existing account. Newly-entered data will always be added to the bottom of your SSLData.txt file. If you so desire you can delete or rename this file through ARA or FTP, once you have processed data. When new data is received a new file will then be created within your Stats folder also entitled SSLData.txt.

• Save the retrieved data to your local hard disk if desired. Either copy and paste the information and save to your local hard disk, View Source (will also save to your desktop), or Save as...

• You may also retrieve your information via ARA from your Stats folder.

Additional Notes:

• If your WebDoor Pro account is on www.opendoor.com rather than www2, we will have to arrange to move it for you to use the commerce server. If you have a webmaster account (co-located server) and want to use the commerce server, please contact us directly for details of how to do so.

• The name of the commerce server must be ssl.opendoor.com. This is for security reasons. You cannot use an alias like www2.your-domain.com.

• Some old browsers do not support SSL, so you may want to consider having a non-secure page for users of those browsers.

• Be sure to use the commerce server only for those pieces of data that need to be secure. Due to the complexity of the encryption, it will be significantly slower than the standard server.

©2005 Open Door Networks, Inc. WebDoor, HomeDoor and LogDoor are trademarks of Open Door Networks, Inc.