[Xitami] xitami ftp server problem

[MATA Tech]

This is a topic that comes up over and over again, so I will explain 
why it happens and what our company did to "fix" it.  The best part 
is that I will keep the explanation and solution in layman terms.

Xitami's ftp server works fine, actually very well... as long as you 
are not behind a firewall.  File Transfer Protocol is an older transfer 
protocol that, normally, doesn't work well behind a firewall.

Here, we struggled with this back and forth, finally concluding that 
there was no way we could operate without a firewall.  Our first 
compromise was merely to disable the ftp portion of Xitami.  After 
all, from our perspectives, the first time we tried Xitami was based 
on the curiosity of a full-featured web server with a small footprint.  
We had always seen the ftp server as a bonus.

Since that time, we realized that ftp definitely had it's place, 
especially with remote administration.  Our solution was to install a 
separate ftp server that had the capabilities to handle PASV 
transfers from behind a firewall.  In our case, we didnt have much 
time to investigate all the options, so we went on recommendation 
and have great fondness for ServU FTP Server.  I don't want to write 
anything that sounds biased, so I would appreciate if others who 
have chosen alternative ftp options to express what ftp servers they 
have that also work from behind a firewall.  And, if there are any 
situations where people have managed to get Xitami's FTP server 
to work, I am sure everyone at Imatix would appreciate hearing that 
as well, at least for the sake of adding the information to the FAQ.

Personally, I appreciate the power of Xitami.  I know everyone 
wants to have more integrated features added to Xitami.  But, from 
my perspective, what most of the Xitami audience are running are 
the freely available Xitami server.  Therefore, one cannot expect 
Imatix to invest more time (which equates to money) into 
developing more add-ons. When one looks at break-even rationale, 
since we have a retail application for which we paid, an application 
which advertises ftp, not stipulative ftp, I would have to say that I 
would prefer that Imatix spend my money (therefore their time) 
investing in better development of a currently advertised feature and 
having it work to it's fullest potential.

I am getting a nosebleed.... time to get off the soapbox. ;)

Sincerely,
Brad Smith, President/CFO
Social Design Technologies

On 17 Oct 2001, at 15:56, Tel-King wrote:

> hi,
> i´m using Xitami 2.4d9 on a Win2k Workstation. Most times when i
> want
> to log in with ftp i get this message and can´t view any data:
> 
> WINSOCK.DLL: WinSock 2.0
> WS_FTP LE 5.08 2000.01.13, Copyright © 1992-2000 Ipswitch, Inc.
> - -
> connecting to 192.168.0.1:21
> Connected to 192.168.0.1 port 21
> 220-
>  Welcome to xserv ftp !
>  Ready for login.  All accesses to this server are logged.
> 220 Xitami FTP 2.4d9 (c) 1991-98 iMatix <http://www.imatix.com>
> USER admin
> 331 Password required for user admin
> PASS (hidden)
> 230 User admin logged-in
> PWD
> 257 "/" is the current directory
> SYST
> 215 Windows NT 5.0
> Host type (3): UNIX (standard)
> PORT 192,168,0,3,6,116
> 200 Command okay
> LIST
> 150 Preparing to transfer ASCII file
> ! Receive error: connection reset
> 150 Preparing to transfer ASCII file
> ! Retrieve of folder listing failed (1)
> 
> Here i´m Using WSFTP but with CuteFTP its the self Problem.
> Any ideas ?
> 
> cu
> steini