[svlug] FTP Problem

[Scott Hess]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, James Leone wrote:
> k5di at zianet.com wrote:
> >Zianet tech support says my unix ftp is at fault 
>
> My gut reaction on this is......he's wrong...

He is wrong, or at least doesn't understand what he's saying.

The two most likely areas of concern are binary-versus-ASCII mode and 
passive mode.  The latter is more likely, so that's where I'll 
concentrate.  Passive mode determines whether the client connects to the 
server for data connections (file listings are data connections), or 
server to client.  Server to client doesn't work at all through a 
firewall, but I believe it is the default in some ftp implementations.  
You should be able to just type "passive" to toggle this:

ftp> passive
Passive mode off.
ftp> passive
Passive mode on.

then try it out both ways.

[The binary/ASCII thing is "binary", so if passive doesn't help, try that 
both ways.]

Also, try running ncftp.  Much better than most plain ftp clients.  Also, 
you can at least try to point your browser at it and browse around, like
"ftp://hostname/path/to/file".

Later,
scott