[PLUG] A DNS/firewall problem

[Rich Shepard]

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Shannon C. Dealy wrote:

> The description of this is similar to a problem I occasionally have.
> My firewall is only configured to pass one of the two FTP protocols
> (passive or active, I can't remember which), and whenever I connect to
> a server that only supports the protocol which my firewall blocks, it
> successfully logs in, but transfers just hang until they time out.
> Maybe your problem is related?

Shannon,

  Could be. In this case, however, I do believe that passive mode is
required. What I learned at the ncftp web site when I installed the DSL and
firewall a few years ago is that I need to use passive mode so my client can
dictate the ports to use so my firewall won't block them.

  The tech at the State's site in Salem also asked me to ensure that passive
mode was on. Now, I discover that I cannot get to ftp.redhat.com to download
files, either.

  It was suggested to me a couple of weeks ago that I take out inetd because
I'm not running any of the r* tools. I'm wondering if this has something to
do with the problem.

  The last time I faced this it was an active/passive mode issue and setting
passive=on in ~/.ncftp/prefs_v3 solved that problem.

  I'm reading the ORA TCP/IP book now to learn how to use tcpdump (thanks,
Galen!). I'll see what that does.

Thanks,

Rich