SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer. SSL will enable your customer's browser to connect to your web site and transparently negotiate a secure communication channel. Once this connection has been made, information, like credit card numbers, can be exchanged securely.

This is a FREE option for any UNIX Domain Hosting Package.

Diamond domains hosted on Windows 2003 can utilize SSL when the domain has their own SSL certificate.

Please note that SSL does not include software to process credit card transactions. Although you can securely receive credit card information through SSL, actual processing of the credit card will require a "Merchant Account" from an accredited financial institution and our Platinum UNIX domain hosting package.

How to implement an SSL secure connection for a UNIX Hosted Domain:

If you have a link to an order form, for example, from your home page, you would need to use a URL similar to following:

• https://www.imbris.com/~<username>/orderform.html  
  
Please note the prefix https rather than the standard, http

The "s" in https:// suggests an SSL related file. Substitute the path to the order form starting with user directory name.

If the secure form calls a cgi script, you must also reference that script securely.

• <form method="post" action="https://www.imbris.com/~<username>/cgi/order.cgi">
  

Retrieving Data From Server

As mentioned above, the secure environment refers to the transmission of information between web browser and web server.
You may submit the data via e-mail, however in order to guarantee security you will need to implement an e-mail encryption option such as PGP by Network Associates
You could also write a script to save the submitted form content to a text file. In so doing, you can reference the text via secure URL and retrieve its content (e.g. credit card information) securely via the web thus completing the loop.

• https://www.imbris.com/<username>/datafile.txt
  (if you are using our digital certificate)

To protect the data from unauthorized web surfers, you can store the data file(s) in a password protected directory.

Using FormMail and SSL

If you are using FormMail in conjunction with a secure form, you will need to reference the script and "success" URL securely. (The "success" URL is the web page you want to display after the email is successfully sent.) Please note that using FormMail without also implementing e-mail encryption (such as PGP) gives your customers a false sense of security. Although the information the user enters into the form gets transmitted securely to our computers, the resulting email message that gets sent from our computers to you is not encrypted and therefore not secure.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet. SSL works by using a private key to encrypt data that's transferred over the SSL connection. Both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer support SSL, and many Web sites use the protocol to obtain confidential user information, such as credit card numbers. By convention, Web pages that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http