FTP Server

A buddy asked me a question and I was wondering if y'all can help answer it:

I have a FTP server on my computer. Ppl on my network can connect to it just fine. But i'm just confused how to let ppl outside my network connect to it. I have dsl modem which hooks into a netgear wireless router. I went into the router configuration to see if i missed something there but i'm not sure what i missed..

 

Unfortuately this is hard. I've got to hurry off now but this just caught my eye. PM me for further info.

 

It is not that hard. In the router config you will find something called port forwarding or virtual server. There you need to forward all incomeing traffic from the FTP ports 20 and 21 to the computer's IP where the FTP server runs on.
Then people can connect to it by using the IP of the internet connection. if you dont know that ip just use www.whatismyip.com

 

Keep in mind that the IP you will be entering on your router's port forwarding page is different from the external IP you obtain from www.whatismyip.com .

 

Thanks for the replies. Thanks for posting this for me Dmbfan04...

Wave:
When i first set it up, thats one of the first things I did. Then i went a speed test site to find out my external IP. After that, I gave the person my ip address with the connection port :20, and it gives them this message

"This address uses a network port which is normally used for purposes other than Web browsing. Firefox has canceled the request for your protection."


Stgben:
The IP i entered on my routers port forwarding page is the IP of the computer the FTP server on. which has a 192.168 ip address.

Any other ideas?

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it..

 

Portforward.com has detailed instructions on how to forward ports on your router. It has samples for most popular routers in the market. Check whether they have your model listed there, even if you don’t have the exact model number, pick a model close to yours, they all have the same interface.

You have to basically tell the router to forward any incoming requests to your router’s (external IP) port 21 (or 20) to your local machine’s (192.168.xxx.xxx address) port 21 : the corresponding FTP port. This way you can even run several FTP servers on several machines.

It is a good idea to disable DHCP on your local machine, because you forward ports to a static local IP like 192.168.1.2 etc. If you have DHCP enabled there is no guarantee that the next time you reboot your PC you’ll get the same IP (however, if there is only 1 PC usually the router allocates the first available LAN IP, but this will not work with many PCs). If it keeps on changing, you will have to update portforwarding entry each time with the new local IP.

To disable DHCP open Local Area Network properties (Control panel > Network connections > Local Area Connection) > Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) > Properties > Use the Following IP address > Enter a static IP, subnet mask, gateway and default DNS.

Type ipconfig /all at the command prompt to get your current information. Fill above properties with those details (you can choose any IP to be your static IP, but the first 3 groups have to be same as the gateway Eg : 192.168.1.xxx).

Use this static IP in port forwarding to have a more permanent port forwarding entry.

 

The other option would be to put that machine in a DMZ.

 

Another Tip :
If you don't have a static external IP but want a more permanent solution to checking a site like whatsmyip every time you want to know your IP, then you can subscribe to one of those free dynamic DNS services like no-ip (there are many more like DynDNS etc.)

They will let you make your own domain name like yourname.no-ip.org, with that you don’t have to worry about IPs anymore, just give your friends your domain name. There is a small tray application that runs on your local PC which will update the IP at regular intervals, so you don’t have to worry about having a dynamic IP anymore.

 

Again, thanks for all the replies and help..


But it is still not working. Everything is setup correctly, according to the website you sent. I opened up port 21 in my windows firewall and did the setup in my netgear setup screen. Made sure my FTP server was reading from port 21. Still no-go.


Any other ideas?

Derek