Testing Google Checkout in BVC5

I do all of my development and testing on computers here in the shop. Recently I wanted to make sure that the BVC5 implementation of Google Checkout and my Shipping Rate Provider Suite played well together. The tricky part was that Google Checkout makes several callbacks to BVC5 web site during the checkout process (and after), so I had to make my workstation available over the internet to Google. These are the steps I used to enable Google Checkout test mode on my local workstation.

The first step is to find the internet address and hostname of your internet connection. This will used to form the callback URL. As you can see in the diagram above I connect to the internet through a router which is connected to a broadband modem (comcast). To find the internet IP address I used the router's configuration web page. To find the hostname I used nslookup:

C:\>nslookup 24.22.112.211
Name: c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net

Now we need the IP address of the computer running BVC5. I used the ipconfig command:

C:\>ipconfig
Windows IP Configuration

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.0.4
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 172.16.0.1

Next we need to tell the router to forward HTTP traffic to this computer. In my router, this is called port forwarding:

Now a request from Google to http://c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net/store/googlenotify.aspx will be forwarded to my computer. Unfortunately a request from my own computer to this same URL will fail because my router does not support internal routing. To fix that I added a host record to the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file so local requests to the same URL are sent to the loopback adapter:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net

OK...the networking changes are done. It's time to configure Google Checkout. First create two test accounts; one for your test customer and one for the test merchant. This will be a little easier if you use two different browsers such as Internet Explorer for the customer and FireFox for the merchant.

On the merchant Integration page enter the callback URL (ie. http://c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net/store/googlenotify.aspx), select XML as the callback method, and uncheck the option to digitally sign the XML. Click on the Save button but leave the Integration page open so you can copy the vendor ID and merchant key.

Now open the admin pages of your local BVC5 site. On the Options > Site Settings > Security page enter the external URL as the Secure Site Root, check Use SSL and click on the Save Changes button. For example,

Secure Site Root: http://c-24-22-112-211.hsd1.or.comcast.net/store/

On the Options > Site Settings > Payment page check Google Checkout and then click on the Save Changes button. Now click on the Edit button next to Google Checkout, enter the Merchant ID (Google calls this the Vendor ID on the Merchant Integration Page), the Merchant Key and select the Test Google Checkout Environment. After filling out the remaining items on this page, click on the Save Changes button.

That's it. To use Google Checkout click on the Google Checkout button when you reach the shopping cart page, sign in as the test customer and place the order. To manage the orders, sign in as the test merchant and visit the order Inbox. I find it easier to use two different browsers: Internet Explorer when I place an order as the test customer, and FireFox when I manage the orders as the test merchant.

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