Server 2k3 - ftp can't connect

E

Eva_Unit_0

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 1, 2005
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I've got a router/gateway machine running server 2k3 here. My experience with windows servers is a bit limited; I'm more used to openbsd and linux servers. Anyway, it's running fine as a router and everything seems great. It's using the DHCP and Routing and Remote Access services and it's just a basic NAT gateway. WAN IP from the ISP and LAN set to static 192.168.3.1. Then, I wanted to add an ftp service to be accessible from the LAN side. I installed filezilla, bound it to the LAN IP, and it worked fine.

Then I restarted the computer. :eek: I know, I know, I should have just left it alone. Well when it came back up, I could no longer connect via FTP. I also installed Cerberus FTP Server as a test and I can't connect to it either. Everything else still works fine.

All I can think is it might be some sort of weird name resolution issue due to the server being on two subnets, but I don't see how that could happen since the ftp server is bound specifically to the LAN ip and I'm trying to access it by the ip address, not a hostname.

Anyone have any ideas what's going on?


EDIT: I also should clarify how it is failing to connect. I'm connecting with gftp from a linux system and it doesn't outright refuse the connection. It says it connects, but then a few seconds later it says the connection failed and tries again.
 
I noticed I was getting errors about connecting to the socket, so I changed filezilla to listen to a different port and it works fine. I guess either 1. something else is already listening on port 21, or 2. my firewall rules are blocking port 21.

I'm new to server 2k3's firewalling system but it doesn't appear to be blocking any ports on the LAN side. I think its more likely that something is already taking port 21.

EDIT: A scan with nmap confirms that port 21 is open by some other service. It can't identify the name.

EDIT AGAIN: looks like the culprit is IIS. I haven't touched it but apparently the default config binds to port 21. Looking into it now.
 
Last edited:
if you have the FTP app under IIS setup, then yes it would conflict/override with filezilla on that same port
 
IntelOwnz said:
if you have the FTP app under IIS setup, then yes it would conflict/override with filezilla on that same port
Click to expand...

this.

you should be able to disable the ftp service of IIS, or of course just uninstall IIS if you don't need a web server.
 
I had the IIS ftp server stopped, but apparently that doesn't actually unbind the service from the port. I guess I'll just uninstall it to simplify things; if I need a web server later I'll use apache. :cool:
 
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