[wplug] On the subject of FTP...

[Bill Moran]

Brandon Kuczenski <brandon at 301south.net> wrote:

> I just configured an anonymous FTP server on my box here, and placed it on 
> the nonstandard port of 10021.  By default (and as desired) it uses ports 
> 49152-65535 for negotiating passive FTP sessions, and so I have opened my 
> firewall to incoming packets from those ports.
> 
> Everything works fine, though on windows machines, for uploading, I have 
> to use IE (or a dedicated FTP client program) since Mozilla Firefox 
> doesn't support FTP uploads.  The problem is that Windows FTP clients 
> (both IE and command-line FTP.EXE) fail when the client computer is behind 
> a firewall.  Mozilla Firefox does not fail on the self-same computer in 
> the same situation.  But again, it doesn't upload.
> 
> I get the sense that this is an M$ problem and this may be the wrong forum 
> to discuss it... but Windows users not being able to use their native FTP 
> clients really hinders the server's usefulness (the only two times I've 
> had a chance to use it were both hindered by the fact that the client 
> users couldn't connect).  I would thus like to fix this problem... is 
> there *anything* I can do from my end?  Web searching has produced a few 
> pages that hint at the existence of the problem, but I haven't found any 
> 'smoking gun' page stating "Windows FTP clients are BROKEN!"

Not "broken", technically, but the command line version of FTP on windows,
as well as many versions of IE, do not do passive FTP.

Passive FTP is a requirement to successfully bypass firewalls in all cases.
In general, it's often a requirement to use FTP over the internet at all
these days, because of the paranoid config that many use on routers and the
like.

Last I remember, however, recent versions of IE supported passive mode.
You may want to check IE's config to ensure that it's enabled.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com