[LUG] ftp woes

[Tony Sumner <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have recently moved to the South West - from Reading where ntl provided
broadband via the cable in the road -- and now get bb from plusnet via
ADSL and a BT phone line. I have a cheap ethernet modem DSL300T and it
all works fine except for ftp. I have to migrate to DOS to use ftp which
is humiliating. So although I have only just arrived I am asking for help
already :-)

Is there anyone who has the same setup: ADSL -> DSL300T (or any other
ethernet modem) -> linux and does ftp work ok?

What happens is that I get a 220 welcome message back from the server
(eg metalab.unc.edu) I type a username (eg anonymous) and the server
does not acknowledge it or ask for a password. Eventually it times out.
I have collected the packet traffic information from tcpdump and I'd
like to compare this with the traffic from a normal ftp session. So what
I'd really like is if someone has the time:

0. % su
1. % tcpdump -i eth0 -X -s256 -nn -w /tmp/ftpdump &
2. % ftp metalab.unc.edu
3. etc until
4. ftp> bye
5. kill the background job
6. % tcpdump -X -r /tmp/ftpdump >/tmp/ftpdump.asc
7. mail the (readable) file ftpdump.asc to me 
8. tidy up

I realise this is a lot to ask but it may help me to find the cause of
the trouble. I don't think it is iptables because I have installed a
fresh vanilla Red Hat 8.0 on a separate partition and the result is
the same. iptables allows evrything out and nothing in and the man
page states explicitly that (passive) ftp is not affected by the
firewall.  I don't think plusnet is at fault because after the
dialogue to ask the DNS where the target site is they are not involved
and the PC is talking to the target. I have tried several ftp sites
and the behaviour is the same. ftp has been around since about 1971
and I find it hard to see why it should stop working. I should welcome
any ideas however wild.

Tony Sumner



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