ftp problems

[mad monkey]

Hi all, having browsed these forums for some months now I have a problem that I cant solve with a search or 2. Other members have had similair incidents with webspace but i find 2 accounts of mine are having troubles within a week of each other.

The first is with my primary account webspace which I uploaded to 2 days ago with a new site. Now I cant connect to it because it is refusing my connection(cmdline, Filezilla and smartftp) and has been since the upload. The site however is still up and running.

The second is a webmail issue on another account but I will raise another thread about that.

Can any support staff check on this for me please? If the server end is ok I will hang my head in shame coz it will end up being something simple at my end, even though I think I have done it all right here(ty search button)
Will PM the details if required.
Thank you.

edit: problem resolved itself this morning.

[mad monkey]

ok so heres something strange, i use my laptop from work and connected to the site this morning using the works connection, thats why i said it was resolved.

I have come home tonight and fired up the laptop again, no settings changed or touched, and cant connect to the site again.

The firewall is configured to allow the traffic, router ports have been forwarded(just in case) and the connection is up and running.

Is there something i could have overlooked? The only difference between work and home connection is the ISP.

Its got me stumped

[aos101]

It may possibly be that F2S have moved FTP for your website to another server, and if you haven't tried to access FTP for your site on your work connection for over 24 hours, then your work connection would get the new server IP address but your home connection would still have the old IP address cached. Can you access FTP now? If you can't you can check if DNS might be the problem by going here and put your sites FTP address in the top right hand DNS lookup box and see what IP address you get back. Now on your home connection at a command prompt type "nslookup ftp.yours-site-name.f2s.com" and see if the IP address you get back is the same as the one from DNS Stuff. If its not the same then F2S have changed the FTP server for your connection.

[mad monkey]

hi and thx

results of the dns lookups:


DNS Lookup: ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com A record


Domain Type Class TTL Answer

ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com. A IN 86400 194.106.33.45

smartysworld.f2s.com. NS IN 259200 server0004.freedom2surf.net.

smartysworld.f2s.com. NS IN 259200 server0001.freedom2surf.net.

server0004.freedom2surf.net. A IN 86400 194.106.56.34

server0001.freedom2surf.net. A IN 86400 194.106.56.46


this is from home


C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>nslookup ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.0.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown (This is my router)
Address: 192.168.0.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com
Address: 194.106.33.45



this is from work


C:\>nslookup ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com
Server:
Address: 192.168.2.1

Name: ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com
Address: 194.106.33.45

same server addresses so not that. Is it possible the FTP server has blacklisted an ip address?

[aos101]

I've just checked and I can connect to the FTP server fine. Can you ping and tracert to the FTP server OK from your home connection? I would think its very unlikely that you've been blacklisted from the FTP server.

[mad monkey]

yup ping and tracert work just fine:

Pinging ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com [194.106.33.45] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 194.106.33.45: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=60
Reply from 194.106.33.45: bytes=32 time=78ms TTL=60
Reply from 194.106.33.45: bytes=32 time=38ms TTL=60
Reply from 194.106.33.45: bytes=32 time=89ms TTL=60

Ping statistics for 194.106.33.45:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 38ms, Maximum = 89ms, Average = 62ms


Tracing route to ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com [194.106.33.45]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms 192.168.0.1
2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms home [192.168.1.254]
3 144 ms 34 ms 59 ms i-194-106-33-151.freedom2surf.net [194.106.33.151]
4 122 ms 39 ms 37 ms i-194-106-32-60.freedom2surf.net [194.106.32.60]

5 150 ms 149 ms 137 ms i-194-106-33-45.freedom2surf.net [194.106.33.45]


Trace complete.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>ftp ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com
> ftp: connect :Connection refused

Grr this is baffling me now

[Dave H]

I just tried it on my connection at home.
Opened a cmd prompt in XP and built in FTP command...


ftp> open ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com
Connected to ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com.
220 ProFTPD 1.2.10 Server (ProFTPD f2s Installation) [194.106.33.45]
User (ftp.smartysworld.f2s.comnone)):

Just out of curiosity. Can you connect to my one ? (ftp.essexboyz.f2s.com), as it is the same IP address.

[mad monkey]

not going very well here, thx dave H, have tried ure ftp from home but the same results 'connection refused' sigh but from work I CAN connect.

I setup an ftp server on my main server to test port forwarding etc, results..

can connect from local network(2 machines) and from the internet(4 machines) to the test server.
so if i can connect into my network from the net, why cant i connect from inside the network out to the net?

Is there an aspect on the routers I could have missed? my understanding is they only block incoming requests as standard(unless forwarded) and outgoing if specifically implemented within the router config(its not)

Could this be an active vs. passive FTP issue? I'm wondering what could be the difference between the many systems that do let you connect, and the one system that doesn't; and, since FTP comes in two "flavours", it's conceivable that your home system is using a different flavour from all the others.

> Is there an aspect on the routers I could have missed? my understanding
> is they only block incoming requests as standard (unless forwarded)
> and outgoing if specifically implemented within the router config (its not)

There's no standardisation among routers. FTP needs some unexpectedly complicated rules for opening/forwarding ports. The simple general rules that work for most purposes cannot in fact cope with FTP, and I think most routers make special provision for it. So the problem could be in your router or its configuration.

See http://slacksite.com/other/ftp.html

Apologies if I'm teaching grandmothers to suck eggs, which is always a risk in the f2s forums where EVERYBODY seems to know EVERYTHING.

JW

[Dave H]

The only thing I would say on the active v passive suggestion, is the OP used the ftp command built in to windows, which does not support PASV. I used the same client, but was able to connect, so I wouldn't have thought it needed a passive connection, as I connected "actively".

To me, it does seem like the ip address is blocked from connecting.
Perhaps fire off an email to the tech support guys as well, giving them your ip, referring them to this thread and asking them to check if some-how, your ip has been blocked from connecting.

Very true, Dave. The active/passive idea is probably a red herring. However, as a compulsive follower of lost causes, I'd check the home router. My own router seems to find it easier to support passive FTP than active FTP. If it got reset into its default mode, it might give the same kind of problem that we're seeing here.

JW

[mad monkey]

I have just sent a mail to f2s now with the details of my problem and refering them 2 this thread for some more info.

The ftp mode suggestion was interesting because i had wondered about the control ports thing myself and had forwarded port 20 on the router before reading the slacksite article. Still no joy, even though the ftp had been working for me up until the Sunday night when I had upped the whole site from home.

Wait and see what support say now.

Thx to those who tried to help

[Dave H]

port 20 ?

21 is for ftp

I have the exact same problem (WinXP, sp2), my firewall settings should let the ftp through both on my WinXP and through the Netgear router.

Anyway, I haven't been able to resolve it in any other way but closing my WinXP firewall temporarily off when I connect to my ftp sites. The Netgear firewall works fine and is still switch on during the successful connection. Not sure if it is much help and it is not an ingenious or permanent solution but it works.

Port 21 is for command and control; active FTP uses port 20 for the actual data. With passive FTP, the server chooses some port (not 21, and almost certainly not 20) for data.

That's why FTP is a pain for a firewall, or for a router that is operating NAT and/or a firewall. An FTP session brings ports into use without the usual formalities that let a firewall know that it needs to "open" the ports.

But this is getting off topic. I don't suppose it is going to help the OP fix the problem.

JW

[mad monkey]

ok, got home tonight and had a fiddle and have pulled the AP out of the equation

rigged up an old standalone windows box with no firewall which I have placed into the dmz of a 2wire/BT voyager adsl modem/router 1800hg.

no firewalls or NAT to worry about, the ip is my external address

result:

Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\smarty>ftp
ftp> open ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com
> ftp: connect :Connection refused
ftp>

grrrr

What is going on?????
time to scrounge another modem without a router feature.

Could my ip be blacklisted from the server?
Why would it be??

update - sister came with her own laptop tonight so I thought to try it as an independant machine. gave a different error anyway


C:\Documents and Settings\Lou Lou>ftp
ftp> open ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com
Connected to ftp.smartysworld.f2s.com.
Connection closed by remote host.
ftp>

ho hum

[mad monkey]

Ahaaaa... extract from adsl modem router log

2005/08/05 20:14:18 BST info src=192.168.1.65 dst=194.106.33.45 ipprot=6 sport=1086 dport=21 FTP Dropped

dognam it! wouldn't you just know it really. Anything with BT in the name is truely a curse to me.

thank you to everyone who tried to help me in here, but at the end of the day i must hang my head in shame because its at my own end :blush:
dont know y yet but i'll figure it.

[Dave H]

On my parents belkin..they had trouble accessing ebay/yahoo mail etc.. a firmware upgrade sorted it out.

Perhaps see if there is one for your modem/router ?