I'm the part time FTP server administrator (with no real full-time admin). We currently only allow ACTV mode connections. Some of our clients have had issues with this but for the most part they've been ok using ACTV. For the few who aren't, we've been able to push the data over to their servers from ours.
there is one client in particular however who is currently having trouble. He is using file-zilla and issuing a PORT command.
First, does using the PORT command imply that you are in ACTV mode?
Second is there a way in FileZilla to explicitly change to ACTV mode?
Thanks for the help,
_Ramy
Active mode requires the PORT command. PORT is what tells the server where to connect to on the client in order to open the data channel.
Active FTP breaks when the client is behind NAT, hence Passive is the preferred default in most situations where FTP is used. It is strongly preferable to not use FTP and switch to SFTP.
Related
I want to write a CLLE Program to transfer Files from the IFS to a Webserver.
The Webserver is registered in the Hosttable from the Iseries.
(commandline: CFGTCP -> Option 10 -> Scroll to the Webserver IP)
Current CLLE Program: (only the ftp-access)
PGM
OVRDBF FILE(INPUT) TOFILE(CMDDTAR7_2/US9FIP) OVRSCOPE(*JOB)
OVRDBF FILE(OUTPUT) TOFILE(CMDDTAR7_2/US9FOP) +
OVRSCOPE(*JOB)
FTP RMTSYS('10.1.2.99')
ENDPGM
After i call my Program i get some results in a PF-File.
The Results are in German but i translated shortly for you.
The Connection is unavalable to 10.1.2.99 on Port 21. Try it again later.
[...]
My Question at the end.
Do you have some solutions for me to transfer xml files to my Webserver from the iseries?
You're writing about a web server and you want to transfer files by ftp. Perhaps you're mixing up protocols here. I'll concentrate to resolve your apparent ftp connection problem.
Seems that the destination host 10.1.2.99 doesn't accept connections on Port 21.
Please make sure, there's no firewall or other stuff blocking your request to the destination host. Moreover, on the host 10.1.2.99 try telnet 10.1.2.99 ftp or ftp 10.1.2.99 in a command window, depending on OS and installed components.
Before automating, just test manually if you can successfully connect and log in via standard command line: ftp 10.1.2.99.
Transferring data by FTP is just fine in a local LAN. Beware that any data including username and password will be transferred in clear text and thus can be possibly read by others as the intended hosts.
Following up to your comment: Actually there are many possibilities to copy files. If you're running a recent version of IBM i, I'd opt for using scp. It's encrypted and thus safe for running outside of local LANs. Great to automate by utilizing Key-Authentication instead of passwords. And many web hosting companies offer scp/sftp access.
I am using a call to ftp.exe to upload file to a FTP Server.
This program is running since many years and uploads to number of servers, so far without problems.
After one of the receiver servers has been updated, uploads are no longer possible.
This is the command sequence:
open ftp.xxx.de
<user>
<pw>
>230 User logged in, proceed
cd upload
bin
put <filename>
and in response to this the server replies:
501 PORT IP is not the same as 10.100.244.5
150 File Status okay, about to open Connection
That is it, after this the connection is stuck and gets closed after a certain timeout period.
Funny enough, a google search for "PORT IP is not the same as" return exactly one result, which explains that the IP seen by the server is different from the one expected.
Also, when using WinSCP, FileZilla or other FTP utility programs, the connection has no problem and does transfer files just fine.
So, why does this appear and how to solve it?
The ftp.exe uses an old-fashioned active mode command PORT, which requires the client to specify its IP address to which the FTP servers needs to connect back to open a data transfer connection.
If your are behind a firewall or a NAT, the client may not know its external IP address and uses its local network address. This causes troubles. Either the server fails to connect back as it obviously cannot connect to the client's local network. Or the server rejects the PORT command straight away, if the specified IP address does not match the IP address, from which the FTP client connects to the server. This is a security measure as the difference may indicate a man-in-the-middle attack. Your server does the validation. Some servers might be configured to ignore the IP address specified in the PORT command and connect to a known IP address of the client.
Another way to solve this is, if the firewall/NAT can inspect the FTP traffic and seamlessly modify the IP address in the PORT command. This is obviously not happening.
You do not get the problem with WinSCP or FileZilla, as these clients default to the passive FTP mode, which does not have the problem. Also in the active mode these clients can be configured to use the external IP address. FileZilla also supports the modern EPRT command, that does not need to specify the IP address at all (the server uses the known IP address of the client).
See my article about active/passive FTP mode for details.
I do not think there's any way to make it working with the Windows ftp.exe. It neither supports the passive mode, nor can be configured to use the external IP address, nor supports the EPRT command.
So unless you can configure the FTP server not to do the check and connect to the known IP address of the client or configure your firewall/NAT to modify the IP address in the PORT command, you have to use another FTP client.
As you know that WinSCP works, see the guide for converting the Windows ftp.exe script to WinSCP script.
(I'm the author of WinSCP)
Why does Apache-Commons-Net's FTPClient sometimes make the wrong computation for the port number in the PORT command? This is in active mode. For example FTPClient it could send out
PORT <some>,<ip>,<address>,<here>,235,181 when in fact the port number used is 60340. What's the cause for this wrong computation?
This could happen on version 3.3.
I know ftpClient.enterLocalPassiveMode(); could solve this, but I want to know the part where the active mode doesn't work as expected.
From your comments, I assume you mistake an FTP control connection with a data connection.
I assume that the 60340 is local port of the FTP control connection. When opening data connection, 60341 is assigned (hence the PORT ...,235,181).
Reasoning: In an FTP active mode, the client opens listening port for the expected data connection, which it then reports to the server via PORT command over an existing control connection. If the server cannot connect to the port, no TCP/IP packet can ever come to that port. As you claim that the "two machines still communicate at port 60340", it must be the control connection. There cannot be any communication on port, if the connection failed ("Can't open data connection").
The actual cause of the "Can't open data connection" error is likely that you are behind a firewall, so the server cannot connect back to the client. What is a common nowadays. That's what passive mode is good for.
If I create a c++ server/client application, the port I used to communicate does it need to be open on the router of the server and client machine
Or what other approach could I take? the client computer needs to receive information from the server but I am not able to have any ports opened because it is on a school network....
[edit]
Hmm My setup is a php page running on a server say when I press hello, the server makes a ssh connection through php and sends shell commands to the machine. The server is running off of a school server which I do have ssh access to and run all my things from there. The client computer will be my pc running off of the school wifi which is not connected to the server. The server will try to make a ssh connection to the public ip of my computer running off of the school wifi(no ports open/can ssh out but no ssh in). Will these methods you mention make this possible, in particular the connect.c since I can't run putty off of the server, and the connect.c I could call from the php.
The choice of language is highly irrelevant here.
There don't need to be ports 'open' on any router, unless your traffic must pass through it. On normal peer hosts in the same network (or subnet) there would hardly be any firewall policy, not even in schools.
Technically it is possible for the switch to block peer-2-peer traffic (meaning traffic not destined to the outgoing gateway), but that is not very usual.
Of course, if the school doesn't allow outbound (WAN) traffic on most ports, tough luck, and they're absolutely right :)
You can look at
ssh (with tunnels -L, -D and -R options, perhaps -o GatewayPorts on)
stunnel
connect.c
http-tunnel
All very readily googled
To establish a TCP/IP connection, only the server port needs to be accessible by the client. The connection is full-duplex, therefore data can flow from the client to the server and vice-versa.
If you are using UDP for your application, which is a connection-less protocol, what happens depends heavily on the firewall or router and whether it performs connection tracking for your service or not.
Unless you provide some additional information on your service and the network setup on both the client and the server side, we cannot provide more concrete information.
I just re-installed Ubuntu server 10.04 and decided to change all of my default ports to get a little extra security. Everything works fine, except when I decided to change the FTP (ProFTPd) port from the standard 21 to 3521. No problems with firewalls or port forwarding. ProFTPd was restarted but when I am trying to connect to it,even though it does respond, it throws the client (FileZilla) into a "passive mode" and then never goes into listing a directory.
I don't really want to use the "passive mode" and I have it disabled in proftpd.conf, but nevertheless I can't seem to change the default port otherwise and make it working. It does seem to work fine on port 21. FYI, the proftpd was installed as a standalone daemon, if that matters somehow?
Ok, I think I figured this out after reading this page: link . It appears that most FTP connections are indeed "passive" and the problem with "active" connections comes from the use of firewalls on the client side since FTP server is initiating an outgoing "data" connection to the client on some random port. In passive mode the client initiates both "command" and "data" connections to the server and hence the firewall isn't a problem, but you should specify which "passive" ports to use on the server. I enabled 3520 and 3521 PassivePorts and it's now working
FTP Active Mode by definition requires the server to initiate its outgoing connections from port L-1. Does your firewall allow outgoing connections from port 3520 as well?
From the FTP RFC:
3.2. ESTABLISHING DATA CONNECTIONS
The mechanics of transferring data consists of setting up the data
connection to the appropriate ports and choosing the parameters
for transfer. Both the user and the server-DTPs have a default
data port. The user-process default data port is the same as the
control connection port (i.e., U). The server-process default
data port is the port adjacent to the control connection port
(i.e., L-1).
...
3.3. DATA CONNECTION MANAGEMENT
Default Data Connection Ports: All FTP implementations must
support use of the default data connection ports, and only the
User-PI may initiate the use of non-default ports.
Negotiating Non-Default Data Ports: The User-PI may specify a
non-default user side data port with the PORT command. The
User-PI may request the server side to identify a non-default
server side data port with the PASV command. Since a connection
is defined by the pair of addresses, either of these actions is
enough to get a different data connection, still it is permitted
to do both commands to use new ports on both ends of the data
connection.
You might wish to take the opportunity to change your users to SFTP, a much nicer protocol.