Gain Access to Site after Payment is Made

[Ender330]

Maybe someone can help me with this. I have a sight that is members only and right now there is no charge to join...You just put in your Username, password and email and you are granted access.

What I want to do is when they click signup...take them to a payment page where they can pay for a membership and enter their username, password and email. This info then would be passed to my current register page and then automatically into the database. Or would it be better to come from my new register page where they enter the credit card info right into my database creating access for them?

So maybe my question should be how do I pass the unsername, email and password to the mysql only on approval of the transaction?

[fobos]

Honestly, i think the best way to do this is have them sign up to see some of the things you have to offer. If they want to get the full features, have them use paypal to give you a payment for so many weeks or whatever. Once the transaction is complete, just give them rights to see the features that they have paid for.

[P0lT10n]

But how are you reciving the money ??? Paypal ???

[fobos]

Yeah

[P0lT10n]

You have to use an IPN... It's an API... I saw it here but I don't remember anything more...

[chrishea]

Have a look at this:

Paypal IPN Interface

It makes using IPN pretty easy and saves you having to reinvent the wheel. IPN will call a module that you identify after a payment is processed (or rejected). It provides you the details of the transaction and you can then update your database with the results.

[P0lT10n]

Have a look at this:

Paypal IPN Interface

It makes using IPN pretty easy and saves you having to reinvent the wheel. IPN will call a module that you identify after a payment is processed (or rejected). It provides you the details of the transaction and you can then update your database with the results.

Hahaha, that was the link I saw and wanted to share with you :P, Thanks chrishea for this, I didn't find it again, you made it !

[Ender330]

No I will be using Credit Card and Debit card info along with possibly Liberty Reserve and or Perfect Money....

Maybe I when the click SignUp I can take them to payment options...once they make a payment then I could take them to the page to enter username, email and password...but now how do I keep them from going around that right to the sighnup url just by putting in say www.mysite.com/signup.php This would take them right to the page I want them to have to pay to access...

[chrishea]

Obviously, you need to store the fact that they have paid in the database and then your other pages (including signup) need to check that they have paid before you let them proceed.

[Nathaniel10]

I have this arrangement on the site I manage. I agree with fobos that the best strategy is to have your visitors sign up for free content and then separately pay for non-free content.

Unless you have expertise in SSL and credit verification, I STRONGLY suggest you use a payment gateway. Payment gateways have the option of a site (you) sending their customers to the gateway's secure site, entering their credit and payment information there, and then returning to your site after payment is confirmed or denied.

Chrishea is correct that you will need a separate database or separate field for storing the payment information. I have one database for storing information on registered users and another database for storing information on the content for which users have paid. The second database may sound like double work. But the conventional wisdom on databases that I read says to keep each database focused on one theme, then link all the databases through a common field (such as user_id). Don't make one database containing all the fields in the world.

I do have a rather elaborate cookie mechanism that checks that a user has the right to the content he/she is trying to access. I have a different cookie value for each section of content. The user must return to his/her user home page, where they see the content sections to which they have rights and select which they wish to access, in order to move from one section to another. They can't directly move from one section to another.

[mschroeder]

PayPal provides a variety of SDK's just for this specific purpose
https://www.x.com/community/ppx/sdks

I see no reason to use something that doesn't appear to have been updated since 2005.

-OP

If you are requiring all of your users to pay to have access then this is easy. If they are not logged in, send them to a login page. If they don't have an account have a register page which accepts their account information email/password as well as payment information. Process the payment info. If it succeeds create the user in the database and log the transaction somewhere. DO NOT store the CC #s. This is what using a payment gateway prevents. Once the user is created, redirect them to the login page or automatically put them through the login process with their account information.

If you need to go beyond the paid sees everything and guest see nothing model then you will need to implement some form of roles/permission system. Where users in a certain role, 'guest', 'registered', 'admin', etc. have certain permissions. When accessing a page the system would need to identify the user (session) and make some determination whether they are allowed to view that page.

This is overly simplified, but should point you in the right direction.

[Ender330]

PayPal provides a variety of SDK's just for this specific purpose
https://www.x.com/community/ppx/sdks

I see no reason to use something that doesn't appear to have been updated since 2005.

-OP

If you are requiring all of your users to pay to have access then this is easy. If they are not logged in, send them to a login page. If they don't have an account have a register page which accepts their account information email/password as well as payment information. Process the payment info. If it succeeds create the user in the database and log the transaction somewhere. DO NOT store the CC #s. This is what using a payment gateway prevents. Once the user is created, redirect them to the login page or automatically put them through the login process with their account information.

If you need to go beyond the paid sees everything and guest see nothing model then you will need to implement some form of roles/permission system. Where users in a certain role, 'guest', 'registered', 'admin', etc. have certain permissions. When accessing a page the system would need to identify the user (session) and make some determination whether they are allowed to view that page.

This is overly simplified, but should point you in the right direction.

Ok...I am going to use a gateway...CCBill. So this is what I want. They members is taken to a billing page...they enter the CC info. On approved they move to the Sign Up Page where they create their Username and Passward. Now they have access to the site.

Ok so here comes my issue. How do I keep people from accessing the sign up page directly. Instead of going through CCBILL just goto www.mysite.com/signup.php and Create Usernaem and Password.

[dennishall]

With payment gateways, you typically need only enter your return URL into the payment gateway configuration.

Typically payment gateways will want you to use a secure page (https;//*.phps) as an example.

Using payment gateways simplifies everything.