Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Posting Data to SecurePost
  • Form POST URL
  • Indicating Where to Store Data
  • Field Naming Convention
  • Defining a Response URL
• Accessing the Posted Data
  • Control Panel SecurePost area
  • Defining Additional Users

Introduction

OxONet SecurePost allows you to securely accept information from visitors to your web site without any programming.  You don't need to write your own CGI applications or install a third-party application; SecurePost does it all for you.  Best of all, SecurePost is completely integrated into OxONet's online control panel, so using it is a snap.

If your OxONet account already includes access to our SSL secure server, you already have access to SecurePost through the online control panel.  If you still need to purchase SSL access, you can also do it securely, right through the control panel.  The actions referred to in the rest of this document are only available if you've purchased SSL access.

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Posting Data to SecurePost

The process of using SecurePost to store your data is relatively straightforward.  The following sections outline in detail the process of creating HTML forms that use SecurePost.

Form POST URL

HTML forms designed to use SecurePost must post to the following URL:

https://secure.oxonet.com/cgi-bin/securepost.cgi

Indicating Where to Store Data

In order to store data posted from a form, SecurePost must be told under which account the storage should occur.  This is done by use of a hidden form field called user.  The value of the field specifies the account under which data should be stored.  This should be your primary OxONet account.  The following HTML code gives an example of how a user field might look:

<input type="hidden" name="user" value="demo">

Note: The user field name and the user name itself are case-sensitive and must be all lowercase to be recognized.

Field Naming Convention

Your forms may possibly contain fields that you don't want SecurePost to store.  Because of this, SecurePost introduces a simple naming convention which marks which field you want to store.  To indicate that SecurePost should store a field, simply name the field store_<name>, where <name> is the name of the field as SecurePost should display it when you view stored data.

For example, the following HTML code creates a text box whose value will be stored by SecurePost in a field called MyField:

<input type="text" name="store_MyField" value="">

Note: The word "store" must be typed in all lowercase, but the name of the field may be any combination of letters, digits, whites pace, and the "-", "_", and "." characters.

There is no restriction on the volume and type of data you may post to SecurePost.  You also do not have to submit the same fields every time.  SecurePost handles each submission as a separate "record" which may have an arbitrary number and type of fields.  Therefore it is perfectly feasible to have multiple forms posting different information to SecurePost at the same time, and if you make changes to an existing form, SecurePost will adjust to your new data automatically.

Defining the Response URL

The final special field recognized by SecurePost is one defining a response URL.  This is the full URL of the page that will be displayed to the user upon successful submission of information.  Normally you would point this to a "Thank you" page that indicates to the user that his data was stored successfully.  If you do not provide this field, SecurePost will show a simple default page to the user.

The response field is defined using a hidden form field called responseurl.  The field name is case-sensitive, and must be all lowercase.  The following HTML code gives an example of a response field definition:

<input type="hidden" name="responseurl" 
 value="http://www.mysite.com/thank_you.php">

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Accessing the Posted Data

Once your visitors post data using your SecurePost-enabled forms, you obviously want to be able to view it.  This section describes the process for configuring SecurePost to give you access to your data.

Control Panel SecurePost Area

Since SecurePost is integrated into OxONet's online control panel, the process of accessing your data is easy.  Simply log in to the Control Panel and select Access SecurePost Data under Secure Server Access.  You will see a list of all data that SecurePost has stored under your account.  When you have finished viewing and processing submitted information, you should delete it from the server by pressing the "Delete Record" button underneath the record you want to delete.

OxONet strongly recommends that you check your SecurePost data often, make local copies of submitted information, and delete records from the server right away.  Although your data is protected using the best security possible, the simple act of physically storing data anywhere makes it more likely that a hacker could gain access to it.  OxONet has made every effort to secure our servers from hackers, but we recommend that you take precautions to avoid keeping sensitive customer information on our servers as an extra safety measure.

Defining Additional Users 

This feature is not yet available.

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