Setting up IPN

1. Login to your paypal account at www.PayPal.com
   
   
2. In the main screen, on the tabs at the top, click on
   the "Profile" link
   
   (click on image below to enlarge)
   
   
   
   
3. Then, click on the Instant Payment Notification Preferences link
   
   
   
   
4. Make sure the Instant Payment Notification check box is "checked".
   
   
   
   
5. In the text box below the checkbox, enter the following text:
   http://www.yoursite.com/paypaldownloadnotify.php
   
   NOTE: Replace the text "yoursite.com" in the above link by
   your actual domain name.
   
   Click on the "Save" button.
   
   
6. IPN has now been activated for your Paypal account.
   

IPN FAQ's

What do I need to be able to use IPN on my web site?

The two most important pieces that you, as a e-Business owner will need to implement IPN successfully, are:

1. A reliable web host with a high uptime guarantee - This is critical to the IPN system, because if your web site is unavailable when Paypal tries to post the payment details to your IPN script, then the whole concept collapses, and is reduced to what it was before you turned IPN on. We recommend Hostrocket and DreamHost

2. A reliable back-end program written in a programming language like ASP, PHP, CGI, Python, etc - which will let you do create dynamic server side programming. (Paypal-Download-Protector uses PHP).

3. If possible, a database (preferable, but not a must) - so that you can take maximum advantage of the "in-real-time-automation" concept and store your customer data in a database for ease of storage, look up, reporting, archiving and automation. Both the hosts we mentioned above come with a free MySQL database. (We use MySQL, of course!)

Am I limited to just one IPN notification URL?

No, not at all!

In fact, one of the reasons why IPN is so powerful is because of it's inherent design which offers you the ability to use ANY NUMBER of payment notification URL's with one Paypal account.

For instance, if you sold 10 different products on your web site, then each of your "Buy" buttons for each of your product can be configured to post notification to a different URL. And what makes it even better, is that Paypal remembers the data posted to each of these notification url's.

Setting up a Privatesite - or Members-Only area using IPN and .htaccess