Documentation
IBILL PROCESSOR:  V6.0

System Requirements

  • Unix, Lynyx or NT Operating System
  • Perl 5
  • Apache, IIS3.0, IIS4.0, or Enterprise web server

IIS Users

If you are installing this on an NT Server you MUST have a program called DAF installed.  Your ISP should either already HAVE this installed or be willing to install it since it is IMPOSSIBLE to run a password site without it.   The guy that created DAF is really cool and very helpful if you are installing this yourself.  Visit his website or email him for assistance with DAF.

Upgrading?

If you already are running IBILL processor 4.0 or earlier you CANNOT simply replace your installation with 5.0.  I had to make some changes to the database structure that I have been putting off for a LONG LONG time. 

5.0 to 6.0

Simply download the new tarball, and replace accountcreate.cgi, search.cgi and delete.cgi.  Remove restore.cgi.

older versions NT

  • FIRST BACKUP THE FOLLOWING FILES from your OLD installation and STORE THEM SOMEWHERE SAFE - backup,log,database,passwords
  • Copy your old LOG and DATABASE files into your new installation
  • Upload rebuild.cgi (its in the new tar file) into this same directory - chmod 755 rebuild.cgi
  • Upload a BLANK text file called newlog into this directory and chmod 777 this file
  • From telnet or from your browser run rebuild.cgi
  • DOWNLOAD the file newlog and RE UPLOAD this file as log (over the old file)
  • Now from the new ADMIN page click on the RESTORE LINK @ the bottom of the page to execute restore.cgi
  • ALL DONE!

older versions unix

  • Download the new IBILL.tar file
  • Read the instructions inside of /upgrade.tools/compile.cgi

Preliminaries

  • Determine the path to PERL 5 on your web server host.  Note that some web hosting companies run both PERL 4 and PERL 5.  Make ABSOLUTELY sure you are not setting this up under PERL 4.  Ask your administrator if you are not sure.
  • Download the tarfile for this program and save it to your desktop.
  • Unpack the tar archive on your desktop using a program that unpacks UNIX TAR ARCHIVES. If you don't have such a program then download WINZIP FREE from SHAREWARE.COM. 
  • After you have unpacked the TAR archive you will have a collection of folders and files on your desktop.  Now you have to do some basic editing of each of these files (or at least some of them).  Use a text editor such as wordpad, notepad, BBEdit, simpletext, or teachtext to edit the files.  These are NOT WORD PROCESSOR DOCUMENTS they are just simple TEXT files so don't save them as word processor documents or save them with extentions such as .txt or they will NOT WORK.   Note that there may be a some files inside of folders which are "blank".   This is normal.

Preparing the CGI scripts

Define Path To PERL 5

The first step is to open up each and every file that has a .cgi extention and edit line number one of each script.  Each of the cgi scripts is written in perl 5. For your scripts to run they must know where perl 5 is installed on your web server. The path to perl 5 is defined to a cgi script in the first line of the file. In each of the cgi scripts the first line of code looks something like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl

If the path to perl 5 on your web server is different from /usr/bin/perl you must edit the first line of each cgi script to reflect the correct path. If the path to perl 5 is the same no changes are necessary. If you do not know the path to perl 5 ask the webmaster or system administrator at your server site.  

Configure the .cgi files

configure.cgi

Each line of code does the following:

  1. Defines $date_command as the path to the date program on your web server.
  2. Defines $localurl as the DOMAIN NAME of your website
  3. Defines $remoteurl as the URL of internet billing
  4. Defines $userdatabase as the path to the database file in your cgi-bin/mastergate directory.
  5. Defines $accessfile as the path to the passwords file in your cgi-bin/mastergate directory.
  6. Defines $logfile as the path to the log file in your cgi-bin/mastergate directory. 
  7. Defines $deleteurl as the URL of delete.cgi
  8. Defines $modifyurl as the URL of modify.cgi
    Each line must be edited to reflect the appropriate path and URLs on your server.

File Locations

  • Make a directory named mastergate inside your ROOT HTML directory.
  • Make a directory named mastergate inside your cgi-bin directory

The following files will be uploaded into http://yourdomain/cgi-bin/mastergate/

configure.cgi
accountcreate.cgi
add.cgi
delete.cgi
count.cgi
modify.cgi
search.cgi
passwords
database
log
admin
ALL PINCODE FILES (explained later)

The following files will be uploaded into http://yourdomain/mastergate/

index.html
ALL 900.html files

The following files will be uploaded into http://yourdomain/mastergate/admin/

admin/index.html
admin/htaccess (RENAMED .htaccess)

The following files will be uploaded into http://yourdomain/members/

htaccess (RENAMED .htaccess)

File Access Permissions

File access permissions must be set correctly for this program to run. The table below lists the permissions of each file which are to be set by the unix command ( chmod ) used to set the correct access permissions. You must set the access permissions for each of these files.  NT users will not have to set permissions obviously.

 CHMOD 755

 CHMOD 777

configure.cgi
accountcreate.cgi
add.cgi
delete.cgi
count.cgi
modify.cgi

search.cgi

passwords
database

log
admin
all pincode files

Create Pincode Files

IBILL has sent you lists of pincodes (1000 per list) each with a corresponding master account and sub account number. These pincodes must be grouped by sub account and converted to text files. The files must be labeled by account number and then transferred to your web server.

Note: There must not be any blank spaces, blank lines or line feed characters between the codes in these files.

Example:

A pincode file contains the sub account number 8050100 with a list of associated pincodes.

  • Create a text file with the pin codes line by line as follows.
    5066819
    0853835
    6417951
    1367069
    1688538
    6560906
    9965320
    2356833
    1437729
    9289087
    6211526
    4327962
    etc...
     
  • Save the file using the name of your subaccont and masteraccount (example 8050100 would be for master account 8050, sub account 100)
  • Do this for each sub account in each of the pincode lists provided by IBILL.
  • Using ftp upload the files to the ../cgi-bin/mastergate/ directory
  • Set the permissions on the pincode files to world r,w,e (chmod 777)

    chmod 777 filename

Create .htaccess Files to password protect directories

Important: Create these files now but don't upload them until the entire installation is finished.   .htaccess files are password control files used by APACHE ONLY.  If you use Enterprise or IIS you will need to consult the HELP PAGE for more information regarding password protecting directories.

You must create .htaccess files for your admin and member directories. The .htaccess files are used by your server, in combination with password files, to control access to the directories where your your web pages reside. The .htaccess file in the admin directory will determine who has access to your administrative pages. The .htaccess file in the members directory will determine who has access to your membership pages.

  • Create a .htaccess file In your http://your-domain/mastergate/admin/ directory using the example file htaccess.example. Note the first line of the file looks something like this:

    AuthUserFile /path/to/cgi-bin/mastergate/admin

    This line sets AuthUserFile as the path to your admin password file. It must map to the path of your admin password file: ie:

    AuthUserFile /path-to/cgi-bin/mastergate/admin

  • Now create a .htaccess file in your http://your-domain/members/ directory using the example file htaccess.example.
  • Assign AuthUserFile so it maps to the path of your members password file. ie:

    AuthUserFile /path-to/cgi-bin/mastergate/passwords

Important information for Netscape Enterprise Servers

You will need to manually edit your htaccess file - actually Enterprise servers don't use htaccess they use something similar called nsconfig. Here is the basic structure
 
<Files mastergate/secured/*>
RequireAuth userfile=/path/to/cgi-bin/mastergate/passwords
realm="yourdomain.com" userlist=*
</Files>
 
Ask your system administrator if you need further assistance with this.

Editing mastergate/index.html - THE MEMBER SIGN UP PAGE

The index.html file in the top level mastergate directory must be edited to supply correct information for each of your credit card account, web 900 account or dedicated 900 account buttons.

Credit Card Buttons

Review the following lines of code from the credit card section and edit them according to the instructions given.

<input type="hidden" size="7" maxlength="7" minlength="7" name="ref1" value="/path/to/cgi-bin/mastergate/8050100">

The field ref1 has it's value field set to 8050100. The value field is the account masteraccount-sub account number of this button and must be changed to contain one of your IBILL account numbers. In the example above I use masteraccount 8050 and subaccount 100 (8050100)

<input type="hidden" size="7" maxlength="7" minlength="7" name="ref2" value="30">

The field ref2 is the number of days this account is good for. You must set the value field of ref2 to the correct number of days that corresponds to the sub account referred to by ref1 (for recurring set to 9999999).

<input type="hidden" name="account" value="8050100">

The value field of this line refers to the same account referred to by ref1. Set this value field to the same account number.

<input type="submit" value="$9.95 for 30 days by credit card">

This line contains the price and expire information as displayed to your client. Change the value field to indicate whatever number of dollars per time this sub account purchases.

As the comments in the index.html file indicate you must copy and edit this section of code for each of your sub-accounts.

Web 900 or Dedicated 900 Buttons

Review the following lines of code from the web 900 section and edit them according to the instructions given.

<input type="hidden" name="account" value="8050500">

The field account has it's value field set to 8050500. This corresponds to the particular web 900 account.

<input type="hidden" name="return" value="http://www.yourdomain.com/mastergate/8050500.html">>

The value field should be changed to contain the path of the redeem page for your 900 pincodes.

<input type="submit" value="$9.95 for 30 days by credit card">

This line contains the price and expire information as displayed to your client. Change the value field to indicate whatever number of dollars per time this sub-account purchases.

Editing mastergate/admin/index.html - THE ADMINISTRATIVE INTERFACE

The index.html file in the mastergate/admin directory must be edited to supply the correct path to your cgi or cgi-bin directory and to add the names of your pincode files to the selection list..

The Path to CGI

A sample form action tag is displayed below. These tags instruct the script to engage a specific cgi file. Edit each of the four form action tags to map correctly to your cgi or cgi-bin directory.

<FORM ACTION="/cgi-bin/mastergate/count.cgi" METHOD=POST>

Specifying Pincode Files

The section of code displayed below produces a select list where each selection is defined by an option tag. It must be modified so that an option tag exists for each of your pincode files. This allows you to count the number of pincodes in each file.

Example

<select name="pinfile">
<option selected>/path/to/cgi-bin/mastergate/8050100
<option>/path/to/cgi-bin/mastergate/8050500
</select>

Editing webgood pages for credit cards - upload to ftp.IBILL.com

You must create webgood pages to transfer to ftp.IBILL.com. Use the template provided for you (g8050100.hmf) and edit as described below. You must create ONE WEBGOOD PAGE PER ACCOUNT.

Edit Form Action

<form action="http://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/mastergate/accountcreate.cgi">

Edit to point to accountcreate.cgi on your system

Name the webgood page

Rename each webgood page using the following format

gxxxxyyy.hmf

where xxxx is your MASTER account number and yyy is the sub account number for this particular billing method and rate. See http://www.IBILL.com/setopcc.html for more information regarding this.

It is important that you review your internet billing administration section very thoroughly. The information can be found at

http://www.IBILL.com/admin.htm

Be sure to edit join.html according to the example at http://www.IBILL.com/samples/join/howtopay.html.

Editing webgood pages for web 900 - stored on YOUR SERVER

The webgood (or redeem) pages used for web 900 numbers are stored inside http://yourdomain.com/mastergate/.   Each web 900 account will have a unique page for redeeming pincodes.  For this example we will use the FICTICIOUS account number 8050500.  Use the template provided for you (8050500.html) and edit as described below. You must create ONE WEBGOOD PAGE PER ACCOUNT.

Edit Form Action

<form action="http://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/mastergate/accountcreate.cgi">

Edit to point to accountcreate.cgi on your system

Edit ref1 and ref2 HIDDEN FORM FIELDS

<input type="hidden" name="ref1" value="/path/to/cgi-bin/mastergate/8050500">

Edit to point to the location of the PINCODE file for this account

<input type="hidden" name="ref2" value="30">

Edit to be the NUMBER OF DAYS this account is for (example is 30 days)

Name the webgood page

Rename each webgood page for your web 900 accounts using the following format

xxxxyyy.html

where xxxx is your MASTER account number and yyy is the sub account number for this particular billing method and rate. See http://www.IBILL.com/setopcc.html for more information regarding this.

Upload your members pay area to http://yourdomain/members/

Add a members account for yourself

Go to the administrative interface http://yourdomain/mastergate/admin/ and add an account for yourself by filling out the fields at the bottom of the page.  This will add your username and password to the MEMBERS password file.

Add an administrative password for yourself

Now download the passwords file located inside

../cgi-bin/mastergate/passwords

and COPY this file as

../cgi-bin/mastergate/admin.

Now your members password is the same as your administrative password.

NOW upload the TWO .htaccess files and you are FINISHED!

You should test the system by running your credit card through and then redeeming the charge(s) in the IBILL administrative interface.

YOUR NEW MEMBERS SIGN UP PAGE IS HERE

http://yourdomain/mastergate/index.html

YOUR MANUAL ADMINISTRATION INTERFACE IS HERE

http://yourdomain/mastergate/index.html

This will be used to manually overide the AUTOMATIC password cgi scripts if needed.

NOTES ON RUNNING YOUR SITE

All passwords are refreshed EVERYTIME a new signup occurs.  Once in a while a user will have problems because they are either confused, their computer crashes, or whatever.   If that happens you can easily create a username and password for them through the administrative interface.

You will likely NEVER need to click on the bottom link (regenerate password databases)   The ONLY time you might need to do this is in the even that your server crashes.   Out of the 500++ installations I have done we have only had to do this TWICE.   So basically you should leave this alone - it is only for emergencies.

DATES - all dates are in a format called a JULIAN DATE.  Julian dates are NUMERICAL.  1 being Jan 1, 1991.  Since passwords are generally sold for a a given NUMBER OF DAYS the only thing that really matters is the NUMBER OF DAYS a users password is valid - it doesnt matter what DAY it expires.  It only matters that if they bought a 30 day password - it should last at least 30 days.

ADDING USERS MANUALLY - When and if you add an account through the admin interface there are only THREE required fields.  Username/Passwords/Expire.  Username and passwords are hopefully obvious.   Expire is the NUMBER OF DAYS for the account.   Thus if you need to add someone for 834 days you would enter the number 834 in this field.  The other three fields are transaction/subscription/pincode - you will probably not feel like dealing with those fields because you would have to look them up through IBILL

BACKUP YOUR DATABASES MANUALLY!  I dont know why this should be a surprise to anyone.  Remember, even the space shuttle exploded.  The best laid plans given enough time are bound to fail.  Your server will crash someday, or you might accidentally delete your database.  Regardless, you should ALWAYS make a point of downloading the database files periodically in case of total disaster.  The files you should save are passwords, database, and log.