What You'll Need to Run CCVS

To run CCVS, you will need a modem and a merchant account. You should also follow a few guidelines so that CCVS will run correctly.

Modems

You need at least one modem dedicated to CCVS use. Credit card protocols do not support compression or error correction during modem connects, so compression and error correction cannot be used. Red Hat can provide you with information about how to turn off such features on the following modems:

Hayes Optima
US Robotics Courier
US Robotics Sportster
Chase Research PCI-RAS

Note

Please use a modem or modems from the above list!

If you use a non-supported modem (anything besides the four modems listed above), it may be very difficult to get the unsupported modem to work with CCVS. You should also check the Red Hat Linux Hardware Compatibility Lists at http://hardware.redhat.com to make sure that your modem will work with Red Hat Linux.

If the modem you must use does not appear on this list, look through your modem's manual to find the string which turns off all compression and error correction, as well as the string which resets your modem for normal use. You will need to provide these two strings when you configure CCVS.

Merchant Accounts

If you are just setting up a merchant account or modifying an existing merchant account in order to use CCVS, your merchant account provider may want to see proof that CCVS can work with the protocol it uses. Certification letters for specific protocols are available at http://www.redhat.com/products/software/ecommerce/ccvs/support/certifications.html. Print all pages of the letter corresponding to the protocol you will be using and show it to your merchant account provider.

Your merchant account provider must use one of the protocols supported by CCVS:

First Data Corporation's ETC PLUS protocol (also known as FDR7, ETC+, ETC7, Omaha)
First Data Corporation's South Platform protocol (also known as Nabanco)
Global Payment Systems' MAPP protocol (also known as St. Louis)
Global Payment Systems' NDC protocol (also known as Atlanta)
Visa International's VITAL protocol (also known as VisaNet, Visa 2nd generation, K format)
Paymentech's UTF protocol (also known as GENSAR)
NOVA Information Systems protocol

If your merchant account provider one of these protocols, you will be able to use CCVS.

Once you've identified which protocol you will be using, review the information applicable to that protocol at http://www.redhat.com/products/software/ecommerce/ccvs/support/docs/protocol-specific.html before you start the CCVS configuration process. The CCVS Protocol Guide describes the functionalities supported by different protocols.

Guidelines for Using CCVS On Your System

The following requirements allow CCVS to run smoothly and efficiently. Please make sure you are following all these guidelines before attempting to run CCVS.

Exclusive Use of the Modem(s) While CCVS is Running

Do not run other software applications that need to access the modem while you are running CCVS. They can interfere with proper operation of CCVS by making the modem unavailable and preventing credit card numbers from being processed.

Permissions, Privileges and Access to the Modem

Most of the permissions needed for CCVS are set up for you during the installation process through the creation of a special group called ccvs. However, you will need to be aware of certain issues involving system permissions and CCVS. These issues are detailed in this section.

All operations for a particular CCVS configuration must be performed from a single user account. One account is required so that all file ownerships and permissions are correctly set and protected. This user account must be added to the ccvs group (by you or by your system administrator) before you run the configuration program.

After the user has been added to the ccvs group, run the CCVS configuration program (ccvs_configure) as that user. After you've run the configuration program, the same user must run the CCVS commands for that configuration.

If you want CCVS to run with a modem, the users in the ccvs group must also be added to the uucp group. Membership in the uucp group may not be sufficient for running the modems. If this is the situation on your system, be sure that the ccvs group members also have access to the serial port for the modem(s) that CCVS needs to use.

If you are using PHP with CCVS, enable the web server to run CCVS commands. To accomplish this, you must make the web server user a member of the ccvs group. Usually, the web server user will also need to be a member of the uucp group.

If you are not using PHP but want to make your web server capable of running CCVS, you have other options (such as suexec or setuid) other than making the web server user a member of the ccvs group. You can set it up any way you like, unless you're using PHP.

Software Versions

CCVS requires Tcl version 7.6 or greater to run the included GUI or to use the included Tcl/Tk APIs to develop your own graphical front end. Tcl version 8.3 is included in Red Hat Linux 7.1.

CCVS requires Perl version 5.0 or greater to use the included Perl APIs. Perl version 5.6 is included in Red Hat Linux 7.1.