How do I check my server for G5 and TLS 1.2 PayPal compatibility?

Is your current hosting and SSL ready for the PayPal update in June 2016? In light of the changes coming in a few months and the alterations that will be required for ALL websites that integrate with its payment gateway, we have produced some helpful tools and guidance below to assist you in testing and integration.

First thing’s first –  if you don’t have any SSL on your website, you will need one. PayPal will require ALL websites that integrate with its payment gateway to have (at the very least) the cart page(s) wrapped in an SSL (https URL). You can get your current host to install this for you.

Before you order it, you get it you need to ensure that it has the following features:

• it’s G5 (not G2)
• it’s SHA-2 (256)
• RSA 2048 bits
• TLS 1.2

If you have an SSL in place already but want to know if its good enough, the code snippet below will tell you if your server is TLS 1.2 ready. It uses a service that PayPal have setup for you to test your server.

<?php
//
echo 'paypal test response <br />';
$ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://tlstest.paypal.com/"); 
var_dump(curl_exec($ch));
var_dump(curl_error($ch));
curl_close($ch);
exit;

Just copy the above code into a simple PHP file and upload via FTP to your server where your IPN sits, then go to the file in a browser:

http://example.com/tlsTest.php

If you see the message:

paypal test response
bool(false)

You are not ready and you need to contact your host to upgrade your server. if you see the message:

paypal test response
PayPal_Connection_OKbool(true) string(0) “”

Your server is TLS 1.2 ready!

When testing your PayPal setup you can use the newly-relocated PayPal sandbox to test your IPN here: https://developer.paypal.com/developer/ipnSimulator/

Naturally, you will need to have a good understanding of PHP and general web development so if you have a website that integrates with PayPal but would prefer a web developer to do the changes, please give our dev team a call on 01525 373020 and we’ll review your setup and give you a fixed-price quote to bring your site up to date so that it continues to work with PayPal.