I’m running Windows XP with the free version of the Zone Alarm firewall program.
I want to run a generic FTP for short periods of time (say a few hours), and I have a dynamic IP cable broadband account.
I have never been able to set the FTP program up so that remote users can access it, even after disabling Zone Alarm.
Anyone want to offer some help?
Can the remote users ping you? Go to your command prompt ( start | run | command ) and enter ipconfig. Give the IP address shown to the person trying to connect to you, and have them try to ping it. If they can ping, you don’t have a connectivity problem. If they can’t ping, have them do a tracert -d to your IP address, to try to figure out where the chain stops.
Not sure, not connected right now. This was a “why didn’t I think to ask this six months ago when I actually needed it” question.
All I can tell you is that the remote user(s) tried accessing the server with both and FTP program and Internet Explorer, using the IP address taken from IPCONFIG and their username/password, neither would connect. It was like the server didn’t exist.
Does your ISP block the FTP port? Most do. (Grumble, mumble, bad thoughts.*) They will block the standard port 21, and will block others if they catch you running a server.
Ditto if you run an http (web) server.
You have to dynamically and frequently change the FTP port, but that makes it a real problem for the users to know how to connect.
Me, I’d run an FSP server, but only about 20 people on the planet know about that. Sigh.
*It’s terrible that most people don’t know how to secure their systems against worms so that us experts can’t do what we consider “normal” things. I was running a web server in 1994…
You have to use passive mode ftp to go through ZoneAlarm. If you’ve actually turned off ZoneAlarm, this may not be the issue.
I run an FTP server on my home machine behind ZoneAlarm, and it works just fine as long as the client specifies PASV. This will be a problem from the standard command line client on UNIX, which doesn’t support passive ftp.
Active vs. Passive FTP: