newbie question and SSL requirement

[guitarscape]

Dear Folks,

 

I am thinking about switching to osCommerce from another shopping cart and am evaluating various options and requirements. And your advice is highly appreciated.

 

I am thinking about 2 possible hosting services:

 

www.ipowerweb.com

www.ehostsource.com

 

I wonder if osCommerce will run on those platforms. If you have had any unpleasant experience with either of those, please speak out. I think ipowerweb uses SGI-IRIX based machines and and ehostsource uses Intel based Linux machines. Does that make much difference in stability and performance?

 

I also noticed that ipowerweb provides SSL for better security. Is SSL required to run osCommerce? Is the system more vulnerable without SSL?

 

One last question, does osCommerce require the script to be run under a specific uid instead of "nobody"?

 

Thanks for your attention.

[mattice]

Dear Folks,

 

I am thinking about switching to osCommerce from another shopping cart and am evaluating various options and requirements. And your advice is highly appreciated.

 

I am thinking about 2 possible hosting services:

 

I wonder if osCommerce will run on those platforms. If you have had any unpleasant experience with either of those, please speak out. I think ipowerweb uses SGI-IRIX based machines and and ehostsource uses Intel based Linux machines. Does that make much difference in stability and performance?

 

You should ask this on www.webhostingtalk.com ...

You need a host that supports PHP and mySQL.

Register Globals in PHP has to be ON. Avoid hosts that run PHP as cgi.

Avoid really cheap hosts (they're cheap for a reason)

Stability and performance rely heavily upon how many hosts are hosted on a single machine. If you are serious about business and can afford it get a dedicated server.

 

Is SSL required to run osCommerce? Is the system more vulnerable without SSL?

 

SSL is not required but since you're probably going to use this to do e-commerce it is wise to have SSL. Not only for your own protection (most cardcompanies make it mandatory to use SSL) but also for your clients.

I would not trust my cc number to a shop that doesn't provide SSL.

 

SSL makes your system more secure when using the Admin with it too as all data between you and the server is encypted.

 

One last question, does osCommerce require the script to be run under a specific uid instead of "nobody"?

Thanks for your attention.

 

osCommerce will run as whatever your webserver's uid is (ussually nobody) as it is in fact a collection of php scripts.

 

Regards,

mattice

[guitarscape]

Thank you for your help!