Credit Card Processing

[Anon]

I've found quite a few notes concerning credit card processing but they're over a year old and didn't quite answer my basic questions.

Can anyone give me some information or point me in the right direction on how to setup a PHP web site that needs to process credit cards? Do web hosting companies have software to help out in this area? Do I have to have may own web server and get it configured for SSL for security? How do I validate and handle the processing of the credit cards to the credit card merchants?

Basically I have a lot of questions and would appreciate some information.

[kparker]

Do I haveto have may own web server and get it configured for
SSL for security?

You probably need SSL for security (though there are a few exceptions)
and in that case you might want your own serve just to be secure from
others users sharing the same web server.

The case where you don't need SSL is if you have very simple needs
and you're willing to let the credit card processor do all the work. If
I'm not mistaken, it's possible to set up Signio (verisign) in this way:
You simply transmit a total and any other customer ID you wish to
the signio website (which is configured to only accept data from your
ip) and then they get all the ccard info on their secure page. You
never see the customer's credit card on your site, but only the
approval number.

But for anything full-blown, you will want your own server.

[thimble]

Try visa.com ther's a lot of info there about crdit card processing, if you surf true the site, i'm sure you'll find some usefull links. You can also use a system like www.paypal.com where they do the actual credit card processing, you just need an account number.

Greetingz,
Johan