Possible firewall problem?

Mr E

Bit of a problem.... has anyone got any suggestions?

From our office, I can't connect to our company website FTP. I can connect to the website itself, I can ping the FTP site and the website, but I can't connect to the FTP site.

I get this:

C:\>ftp xxxxxxxxxxxx.vs.netbenefit.co.uk
Connected to xxxxxxxxxxxx.vs.netbenefit.co.uk.
Connection closed by remote host.

I rang Net Benefit (the hosts), and everything is fine their end. They say it could be our our ISP.

I can connect from home, so its only a problem in the office. I've tried the actual IP address too, and I get the same thing.

Could it be the firewall? Our ISP? Anything else?

Thanks in advance,
- Dave.

bricks

Can you ping www.boards.ie from your PC in the office?
Can you ftp to other ftp sites?
ftp ftp.funet.fi from the office and if this doesn't work then its the office firewall thats doing it.
Contact your network admin to have the port opened.

Gavin

Sounds like it's the firewall alright. It may possibly be solved by using passive mode, but it looks like it's not even establishing the connection fully. Try passive if not, talk to your firewall admin


From google groups

Active or passive mode ftp has nothing to do with the direction
of the files being transferred; it controls whether the server
(active) or the client (passive) initiates the data connection.
(The control connection is always initiated by the client.)

With passive mode, both connections are initiated by the client,
and port 20 (on the server) generally is not used.

The typical passive mode ftp works like this:

control connection:
client (high port) -> server (port 21)

data connection(s):
client (high port) -> server (high port, or whatever was
specified in the server's response to
the client's PASV command)

Gav

Mr E

OK, I forced PASV mode in CuteFTP and it didn't make a difference.

Whats weird is that I can connect to other FTP sites, no problem. What setting on the firewall would allow access to all FTP sites except our own?

- Dave.

Pimp Ninja

Is your ftp site hosted in your office???

Are you routing traffic out only for it to be routed back in??

Is the ftp server seeing traffic coming into it from its outgoing rout if you get me???

ie
Your office has the external IP 200.0.0.2
You are sitting behind that IP and connecting by going 'ftp 200.0.0.2'
Your FTP server accepts the incoming connection to 200.0.0.2 from 200.0.0.2 then gets confused because of the routing setup.

Just a possibility... If it is the case there is a bit of work involved in fixing, If its no the case then ignore meh plz.

Mr E

FTP site is hosted in the UK, so its outside the office and firewall.

Just as an extra to my original description of the problem, the firewall is a hardware firewall, so it would have no reason to block access to our site FTP. And like I said before, I can FTP to any other FTP site - no problem. Its just this one thats refusing my connection.

- Dave.

KdjaCL

Correct password and login if any?


kdjac

Mr E

Not getting as far as the login phase.

C:\>ftp xxxxxxxxxxxx.vs.netbenefit.co.uk
Connected to xxxxxxxxxxxx.vs.netbenefit.co.uk.
Connection closed by remote host.

- Dave.

Frank Grimes

Is it possible that the hosting company have blocked FTP access from the IP range you're coming from in work? It might be worth getting them to recheck.
I would think if somehow the firewall was blocking connections you wouldn't even see the "Connected to xxxxxxxxxxxx.vs.netbenefit.co.uk." bit.

Gavin

As a temporary check you could plug out your firewall, give a pc your public ip and ftp from it. If it works, grand your firewall is the problem. if not then obviously it's a problem with the isp or the hosting company.


Obviously this will disable net access for the rest of the company, but you could do it in the evening and would only take 5 minutes anyway. That's assuming the internet connection comes in via an ethernet cable ! But either way, just try and turn off the firewall/remove it from the equation if you can as a test.

Gav

Mr E

Hi guys, just a quick followup on this. The problem seems to be a timeout issue in standard FTP clients and DOS FTP. If I type ftp://xxxx.xxxx.xxxx in IE6, it connects to the site after about 2 mins (where as ftp clients usually give up long before that).

Strange one, but at least I have a workaround.

Anyone come across this before?

- Dave.