How does PayPal IPN thing work?

[ehostingcomplete]

I know that paypal IPN sends data to a webpage you choose without the user seeing the url but how does it work? i want to add an area to my site in which onlys allows access to peope who paid and have instant access so would send data like a userrname or pass so its creates the account.

is this the same as the notify option, i think it is?

thanks

 

[zkiller]

you would need to setup your own user management system on your site first. then when people sign up, they get sent to paypal for processing and after payment they are redirected back to your site. the information sent back from paypal would need to be pulled into your database to update the users status.

 

[ehostingcomplete]

you would need to setup your own user management system on your site first. then when people sign up, they get sent to paypal for processing and after payment they are redirected back to your site. the information sent back from paypal would need to be pulled into your database to update the users status.

I do have a user management system, I would like to have the account activated after payment but want to remove the risk of the person creating their own URL to say they have paid. The return URL is fine but how does the IPN/notify work? Does it secretly go to a URL then close that window after load (this way i can create a notify url and parse on a page load), or does it send data another way.
Im not quite sure how this would work.

 

[zkiller]

here is the IPN manual directly from paypal, it explains everything much better than i could.

https://www.paypal.com/en_US/pdf/ipn.pdf

hope that helps clear up your confusion a little.

 

[Chroder]

When the person pays, the Paypal servers send a request to the script you specify. It's not like the old days where they can change the URL, because they're not in control of it, PayPal is.

The Paypal response tells you everything you need to know, the time, the transaction number, success/failure etc.