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[irongladiator]

Hey Guys, I just got a DNS-323 with a Seagate Barracuda 500GB drive. Everything works great. But I'm a bit stumped on the whole FTP thing. I got it work internally, and it works great but where I'm confused is what to "Port forward". If I go (From Internet Explorer) to "ftp://My WAN IP", I can get to where you can enter a username and password, but once you enter it, it kinda hangs and then goes to a "Internet Explorer Cannot Display The Web Page" error. Whereas if I go to "ftp://DNS-323's LAN IP" I can get into it with no problem. I have Comcast for my ISP, are they blocking any ports, should I be enabling something? I'm new to all of this. Thanks in advance for any info guys!

[jamieburchell]

Firstly, you'd be better off using a proper FTP client for Windows such as FileZilla. It's freeware and very popular and has many more options available to configure. In my experience it works better than standard Windows explorer.

Secondly, you will need to open the FTP port on your firewall (21 probably, but it depends what's in the DNS-323 settings under FTP) and have it point ("forward") to the internal LAN IP address of your NAS. If your NAS has a static IP address, this will help and is recommended anyway.

The idea is that when you request port 21 on your WAN address, your firewall/router will forward the request to your DNS-323.

You can check which ports are open on your WAN IP by using web services such as "Shields Up!".

If you don't always know what your WAN IP address is, look at a dynamic DNS service such as dyndns. This will allow you to register a host name like dns323.dyndns.org and have it automatically point to your WAN IP. This works by your router or the NAS telling the DDNS service what your current WAN IP address is.

[irongladiator]

Hey jamieburchell,
Thanks for the reply. I'll check out the "Shields Up!" Everything else you mentioned was already done. I'll repost if I have further questions.

**UPDATE**
It appears port 21 is opened up by my ISP.

So.....any other ideas?

[jamieburchell]

Have you actually tried to connect outside of your network?

[irongladiator]

I'm a field technician for a telecom company. All of us techs have Internet in our vans. I'll check there, and report back. But to answer you question, no I have not tried outside of my network. I thought that in theory if you hit your own WAN IP it'd be just like if you were on the outside. Is that NOT the case? I'll report back in a few.

**UPDATE**
No-Go, from my work van. I can get to the point where it'll ask for my username and password. I enter them and the same thing happens I get to a page that says:  "Internet Explorer Cannot Display The Web Page". Any other ideas?

[jamieburchell]

Use FileZilla and try, not Windows Internet/explorer.

[fordem]

Did you notice that you can connect to the ftp server, in that it requests a username & password before it drops dead?   ftp requires two connections - a control connection, which you are establishing, and a data connection, which is where you're getting stuck.

Internet Explorer defaults to passive ftp - for passive ftp to work you have to ...

1 - tell the DNS-323 to report the external ip address
2 - forward the range of "passive ports" you configured on the DNS-323 to the DNS-323.

You also need to be aware that the passive ftp functionality in the DNS-323 is broken, as it does NOT track changes to the external ip address, should that change.

Go to internet options, and deselect passive ftp and try again - I'll bet it works.

[irongladiator]

fordem,
Yeah it is the "Data" connection is where I'm getting stuck. I'll try an FTP client, but I would prefer to use Internet Explorer. This is what my settings are (I havent changed them at all):

[jamieburchell]

If you really must use Windows explorer/IE - as fordem says, you can check/uncheck "Use Passive FTP" in the options menu.
Fordem is also suggesting that you'll need to open the ports on your firewall that are shown if you're using passive mode.

However, in both Windows and FileZilla I can access FTP in Active or Passive mode from outside of my network on my DNS-323 with just port 21 open on my firewall. I've also verified the ports that are open on my firewall.

[qinstaller]

If I may add to this discussion since I to am new to setting up an FTP. I have opened up the available ports in the router but am receiving this when I try to connect from another network using Filezilla as recommended.

Status:   Connecting to xx.xxx.xxx.xx:21...
Status:   Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response:   HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request
Error:   Could not connect to server

I have verified that I can connect to other FTP's just not the DNS-323

[jamieburchell]

Have you verified that you can FTP to the NAS from inside your network?

[qinstaller]

Yes we just verified that connection can be made from inside the network.

[jamieburchell]

Does setting passive/active mode make any difference? Fordem suggests that using one over the other will help in certain circumstances. For me, I can use either with just port 21 open on my router/firewall.

Here's a handy tool that you can run from inside your network that will analyse your external IP and tell you which ports are open (to confirm).

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

It does sound like you are establishing an initial connection however.

[grixx]

Status:   Connecting to xx.xxx.xxx.xx:21...
Status:   Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response:   HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request
Error:   Could not connect to server

Didn't you notice that you've got a http-response upon a ftp-request?
I bet you are not talking with your NAS from the outside but with your router. Are you absolutely sure that you have mapped outside tcp-port 21 to your NAS's private IP-address  and tcp-port 21 in the NAT/PAT-rules of your router?

[jamieburchell]

PteJack,

You might be better starting a new thread with your guide. Call it something like, A Guide to Setting up an FTP Server on your DNS-323 - then remove the posts from this thread. We've both hijacked someone elses thread

The moderators might even make it a sticky - but I've not seen them in a while.

Jamie