FTP and Wireless G

I have a Linksys Wireless-G(WRT54G) Broadband router that I replaced
my rusty old linux router with about two months ago to serve up
internet access from my cable modem to my internal network. Everything
was a cinch, got my Linux box, my wife's WinXP box and both daughter's
Win98 boxes on the network and smokin'. All protocols seem to work,
http, downloading file(from a browser), sofware updates via
up2date/windows update/norton antivirus, instant messenging vi gaim
and ymessenger. I'm thinkin', hey, I should have dumped the old i486
linux router I've been using since 97' and done this sooner! Going
wireless wasn't a headache.

Well, then I decide to fire up an ftp client, first I use gftp, some
sites work but are slow, most don't accept my connection or they peter
out during file download. Ncftp won't even get signed on. So like the
good Linux veteran I go through each of the Wireless HOWTOs and search
the news group. Unfortunately most of the news postings are people
having problems accessing boxes behind the wireless router which has
been answered a thousand times with port-forwarding inward. Well, I
don't want to do that, I just want to FTP like I should be able to.
I'm running in complete stealth mode, the only thing that says I exist
on the Net is the IP address.

I'm sure it's me not seeing the forest through the trees, but can
anyone tell me how to fix this?

Thanks,

Congo

On 10 Nov 2003 19:21:35 -0800, congo <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I have a Linksys Wireless-G(WRT54G) Broadband router that I replaced
> my rusty old linux router with about two months ago to serve up
> internet access from my cable modem to my internal network. Everything
> was a cinch, got my Linux box, my wife's WinXP box and both daughter's
> Win98 boxes on the network and smokin'. All protocols seem to work,
> http, downloading file(from a browser), sofware updates via
> up2date/windows update/norton antivirus, instant messenging vi gaim
> and ymessenger. I'm thinkin', hey, I should have dumped the old i486
> linux router I've been using since 97' and done this sooner! Going
> wireless wasn't a headache.
>
> Well, then I decide to fire up an ftp client, first I use gftp, some
> sites work but are slow, most don't accept my connection or they peter
> out during file download. Ncftp won't even get signed on. So like the
> good Linux veteran I go through each of the Wireless HOWTOs and search
> the news group. Unfortunately most of the news postings are people
> having problems accessing boxes behind the wireless router which has
> been answered a thousand times with port-forwarding inward. Well, I
> don't want to do that, I just want to FTP like I should be able to.
> I'm running in complete stealth mode, the only thing that says I exist
> on the Net is the IP address.

You are not alone. Even though the Dlink DI-704 gateway I was using was
supposed to recognize ftp and ftp-data ports (which could be set if using
non-standard ports) I could not ftp through it from LAN with passive
enabled or not, unless I set the ftp client IP as DMZ in the Dlink.

Since I went back to using Linux for firewall/masq I have not even used
ftp, but SuSEfirewall2 (iptables) had a variable to enable highport "yes"
or just "ftp-data" and that always worked for me before with ncftp.

The reason I had used a hardware gateway was because my Linux logs grew so
fast from logging dropped packets from all the worms and probes, but I
disabled that and now just log successful incoming (and only internet
initiated ports allowed in are ssh, smtp and http).

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/

(E-Mail Removed) (David Efflandt) wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed)>...
> On 10 Nov 2003 19:21:35 -0800, congo <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> > I have a Linksys Wireless-G(WRT54G) Broadband router that I replaced
> > my rusty old linux router with about two months ago to serve up
> > internet access from my cable modem to my internal network. Everything
> > was a cinch, got my Linux box, my wife's WinXP box and both daughter's
> > Win98 boxes on the network and smokin'. All protocols seem to work,
> > http, downloading file(from a browser), sofware updates via
> > up2date/windows update/norton antivirus, instant messenging vi gaim
> > and ymessenger. I'm thinkin', hey, I should have dumped the old i486
> > linux router I've been using since 97' and done this sooner! Going
> > wireless wasn't a headache.
> >
> > Well, then I decide to fire up an ftp client, first I use gftp, some
> > sites work but are slow, most don't accept my connection or they peter
> > out during file download. Ncftp won't even get signed on. So like the
> > good Linux veteran I go through each of the Wireless HOWTOs and search
> > the news group. Unfortunately most of the news postings are people
> > having problems accessing boxes behind the wireless router which has
> > been answered a thousand times with port-forwarding inward. Well, I
> > don't want to do that, I just want to FTP like I should be able to.
> > I'm running in complete stealth mode, the only thing that says I exist
> > on the Net is the IP address.
>
> You are not alone. Even though the Dlink DI-704 gateway I was using was
> supposed to recognize ftp and ftp-data ports (which could be set if using
> non-standard ports) I could not ftp through it from LAN with passive
> enabled or not, unless I set the ftp client IP as DMZ in the Dlink.
>
> Since I went back to using Linux for firewall/masq I have not even used
> ftp, but SuSEfirewall2 (iptables) had a variable to enable highport "yes"
> or just "ftp-data" and that always worked for me before with ncftp.
>
> The reason I had used a hardware gateway was because my Linux logs grew so
> fast from logging dropped packets from all the worms and probes, but I
> disabled that and now just log successful incoming (and only internet
> initiated ports allowed in are ssh, smtp and http).


Well, I stumbled on a fix, or a band aid to my problem. My machines
are all obtaining their IP addresses via DHCP. When I switched my
Linux box back to a static IP address, 10.8.11.2, presto-chango! Now I
can sign on to the FTP sites and download files. Looks like I'll need
to read up on configuring DHCP I guess to allow FTP to work. But for
now, this will do. Just wanted to post the answer, to my own question,
in case anyone else was having the same trouble.

Congo