Setting up FTP capability

[Muse]

I have a two-box Win2000 Pro peer to peer network with DSL using a D-Link DI-704p router. I telecommute and my client has a Windows 2000 Server WAN network (two locations, which I will call DATA and BOX, a mile or so apart), and I access a box running Win2000 Pro at location BOX using pcAnywhere. I often need to download 200 to 300 MB of data at location DATA and I've been using pcAnywhere File Transfer. I've had serious problems downloading the data directly from location DATA. I get File in Use errors. I found a workaround, being copy the contents of the live data directory at location DATA to a directory on the pcAnywhere box at location BOX, followed by a pcAnywhere File Transfer from location BOX to my own box. Strangely, my download from location BOX goes about 8 times as fast as the copy from location DATA to location BOX. I think this might have something to do with the architecture of pcAnywhere, and my guess is that what's going on is that the data is actually going from location DATA to my own box and thence to location BOX, but someone may dispute that. Fine! I'd really like to know. However, the speed of all this is not the major problem. The problem I've encountered is the occasional times that I need to upload the data from my box to my client. Yesterday, for instance, 76% of the way through the upload the process stalled and I lost the connection and I was unable to establish another pcAnywhere connection. I thus failed in the action I needed to do. Clearly, I need a better way of transferring data, at least from my own box to the client site. So, I'm investigating FTP, at someone's suggestion. An Anandtech poster suggested I set up an FTP server on my own box, his suggestion being Cerberus FTP Server - free to someone who isn't a company, and I'm not. He also said I should set up an FTP client on my client's box, which I did at location BOX. Using pcAnywhere, I uploaded the SmartFTP installation EXE to location BOX and installed it. However, so far I've been unable to make a connection from the box at location BOX to my own box running Cerberus FTP Server. Cerberus thinks it's at the IP 192.168.0.187, which is my own box's internal IP to my network, assigned by my router's IP routing software. I tried adding another IP address, being my static IP that's used by my router, but I still can't make the connection. I tried concatenating those IP's and seeing if I could connect that way, and tried using a browser to make the connection:

FTP://216.103.104.249/192.168.0.187

However, that didn't work either. I created a user with password, but so far I haven't been asked for a username and password. I have set up Cerberus to only allow access by the IP of the box at location BOX, which is internal to their network, but is pingable by my own box. My box is pingable by the box at location BOX, too. What's wrong? Clearly, I'm not getting something. I think I'm failing to configure either the FTP server or the FTP client, or both. Any help is appreciated.

 

[Muse]

I talked to a support person at my company, which is a resource for information technologies and should be able to walk me through this stuff. I was told that I have to open the FTP port on my router and configure the FTP client for Passive FTP. So I opened the port (21) and on the machine that has the FTP server software (Cerberus), and checked the SmartFTP on the other box and it already was set to passive FTP. I still cannot connect. Anybody got any ideas? Thanks.

 

[scienter]

Hi

Read this: http://docs.astaro.org/older_versions/ASL-V2.0/docs_v2/ftp-howto.txt.
It is specific to another product but lays out the concept and general instructions. If your router does something I think is called stateful inspection, then its a lot easier but this will work around the problem. It will also teach you more about ftp than you wanted to know.

hope this helps.

 

[mboy]

Are you positive you have your router port 21 open on routerfor the LAN ip of the server running the FTP server.
Are you also sure that you are trying to connect to that server from the client using your public IP assigned by the ISP?

is the client box physically off your network when u have been trying it (like at his house and not yours or wherever the server is sitting)

Do you have a software firewall or anything like that?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: scienter
Hi

Read this: http://docs.astaro.org/older_versions/ASL-V2.0/docs_v2/ftp-howto.txt.
It is specific to another product but lays out the concept and general instructions. If your router does something I think is called stateful inspection, then its a lot easier but this will work around the problem. It will also teach you more about ftp than you wanted to know.

hope this helps.

I've had enough problems with communications protocols to make me think I want to read a 1000 page book on TCP/IP, etc. This one or two page document looks like just what I want. Thanks!!

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: mboy
Are you positive you have your router port 21 open on routerfor the LAN ip of the server running the FTP server.
Are you also sure that you are trying to connect to that server from the client using your public IP assigned by the ISP?

is the client box physically off your network when u have been trying it (like at his house and not yours or wherever the server is sitting)

Do you have a software firewall or anything like that?

Something's weird about my Port 21 accessibility. I opened the port on the router but when I go to Shield's Up! and test my ports it says my Port 21 is in Stealth mode. Here's what it says about my Port 21: There is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that a port (or even any computer) exists at this IP address! So, I guess there's something wrong about the way I opened the port on the router. I do have the FTP Server software (Cerberus) configured to just allow access from one certain IP and maybe that's why it's invisible. I can test that by uninstalling Cerberus and reinstalling and leaving the default setting of ananomous access.

Yes, I'm using my public IP for the connection from the FTP client. The client box is around 20 miles from me and isn't on my network. I'll sort this out. Thanks for the help.