[lug] ftp question

[Hugh Brown]

On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 09:41:58PM -0700, Steve Sullivan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> When I use anonymous ftp to a NOAA site I get odd results.
> 
> If I try from home over comcast:
>   ftp -p tgftp.nws.noaa.gov
> and issue "ls", it works fine.
> 
> But if I try a different NOAA site:
>   ftp -p ftp.emc.ncep.noaa.gov
> and issue "ls", it hangs.
> 
> But both of these NOAA sites work fine from my work.
> It seems to be some interaction between that particular
> NOAA site and comcast or my home computer.
> I've tried it with and without -p, and found the same odd results.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Steve

The hang on the second site sounds like it is trying to do an active connection instead of a passive connection even though you've asked it to do passive (though the man page on redhat says -p/PASV is the default and has no effect anymore)

Try doing a network sniff of the traffic with wireshark.  It's possible that the ftp server at ftp.emc.ncep.noaa.gov is configured to only do active connections.

You can also pass -v and/or -d to get more info out (I'm assuming that you are using the same ftp client as on redhat).

Hugh