FTP across Linksys router

[KenShackelford]

I am hoping that someone might be able to help me out with a little problem that I have. I have a DSL connection into my house, using a digital modem that was supplied by Earthlink (my DSL provider). I signed up for a static IP address, because I wanted to run a web server from my home, and I also wanted to be able to FTP into my computer from the office. The web server is working just fine. But FTP is another matter. I can FTP into my box at home using port 80 just fine. But when I attempt to issue a "dir" or a "ls -l" command, I get the following error:

> ftp: bind :Can't assign requested address

I checked my server's log file using the following command:

tail -f /var/log/messages

What I see is as follows:

vsftpd: warning: can't get client address: Bad file descriptor

Port 20 and 21 are "open" as far as the Linksys router is concerned - obviously FTP is working enough that I can log in. But if I try to do anything once logged in, I get the message above. Now, the router is taking the static IP address that Earthlink gave me, and is port forwarding to 192.168.1.250 (the local net address for my server).

Has anyone seen this kind of behavior, know what is causing it, and most importantly, know how I can get around this so that FTP will actually be functional for me? I am running Red Hat Linux 9. But this behavior has been happening to me since Red Hat 7.x. It also dogged me this way when I was using wu-ftp as well.

Any help/ideas would be much appreciated.

Ken

 

[tarn]

I would be inclined to use scp (part of the ssh tool set) rather than ftp, this way you only need port 22 open for ssh and scp.

The command is scp user@system:/home/user'shome/filename /some/local/directory/

and to put fles: scp /some/local/dir/filename.txt user@system:/home/someuser'shome/

I'm not sure how you are using port 80 to ftp in at home as ftp requires ports 20 + 21 ?? ..... or do you mean you use a browser woth ftp://your.... (then you are using ports 20 and 21 for data)

L.

 

[KenShackelford]

tarn,

Thanks for the response I really appreciate it! You are right about port 80 - I was thinking of my http access, which of course uses that port and works just fine. On my Linksys router, I have ports 20-21 open for FTP. I can use port 22 with SSH to actually log in similar to telnet (which I do NOT allow in). There just seems to be something a bit amiss with FTP - any flavor.

I know about the scp command on the linux side, but what about when you are using an M$ workstation as the client, and you need to transfer files to/from the server? I would imagine that if I could use a Linux client in the office then everything would be wonderful. Sadly, this is not the case... ;-)

Do you know if there is an M$ equivalent to scp out there?

Thanks again for the kind response!

Ken

 

[tarn]

Yes you can use PuTTy get it here:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html

if you get the whole putty download you will have pscp from the command line or there is another tool out there somewhere that gives you a putty GUI companion, I just can't place the name now you can probably Google for it.

Good Luck

Laurie.

 

[tarn]

Ok this is the GUI I mentioned:

http://www.i-tree.org/

I only used the eval copy and found it a bit buggy unless you tell it to exit after use rather than just hitting the X

Good Luck
Laurie.

 

[KenShackelford]

Laurie,

Got the file that you mentioned in your post. I also found a GUI version at

http://winscp.vse.cz/eng/download.php,

and this looks like it will work very well for those times when one needs a side-by-side compare of files on local and remote. The pscp command line utility is going to be what I need to use the most, though, so you've pointed me to a gold mine. I am testing it right now, and I am now able to transfer files just fine. Thank you VERY much!!!

Ken