Port 20 closed? How to make FTP work?

FTP control works on port 21.

Port 20 is only used under active FTP and is initiated by the server after the client connects (the server opens a connection from port 20 to a port on the client's system).

Therefore no incoming connections should ever be established on port 20, so what you're seeing is normal.

As for why you can't log in, can you describe what happens? Do you connect but the username/password is rejected? or do you not connect at all? It makes a difference in understanding why it doesn't do what you expect.

What do the server's logs say about it?

/var/log/ftp.log

Hello...

I am having the exact same problem. I checked the /var/log/ftp.log using Console on the server itself, and the log was completely empty.

Here is the transcript from Transmit:

***************************************************************************

Transmit 3.2.1 Session Transcript
LibNcFTP 3.1.9 (March 19, 2005) compiled for macosx10.4.1
Uname: Darwin|Dan's-iMac-G5.local|8.2.0|Darwin Kernel Version 8.2.0: Fri Jun 24 17:46:54 PDT 2005; root:xnu-792.2.4.obj~3/RELEASE_PPC|Power Macintosh
Sysinfo: Mac OS X 10.4.2 (Build 8C46)
220: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to the FTP.

Be advised that all activity is logged.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

70.xxx.xxx.236 FTP server (Version: Mac OS X Server 10.4.12 - +GSSAPI) ready.
Connected to 70.xxx.xxx.236.
Cmd: USER danbedford
331: Password required for danbedford.
Cmd: PASS xxxxxxxx
530: Login incorrect.
Cmd: QUIT
221: Goodbye.

***************************************************************************

I am sure that the password is correct.

Thanks in advance!

I'm experiencing the same problem and would like to add a little info (sadly no solution yet) to the problem description:

My /var/log/ftp.log is emtpy as well. But the lukemftpd seems to log to system.log instead.

I can also definitely rule out wrong passwords as well as firewall issues.

This is what I get in my system.log

Oct 30 14:43:50 ftpserverhostname ftpd[21566]: ACCESS DENIED (not in any class) TO clienthostname [192.168.0.119]
Oct 30 14:43:50 ftpserverhostname ftpd[21566]: FTP LOGIN REFUSED (access denied) FROM clienthostname [192.168.0.119], ftpusername

Replace ftpserverhostname with the hostname of your FTP Server, clienthostname with the FQDN of the client machine trying to login and ftpusername with the shortname of the user trying to login.
The IP of course is in my LAN range, yours will be different.

I have FTP Services open for all users, so that cannot be the problem as well. OpenDirectory and Kerberos are working. FTP is restricted to Home Directories only.

Server: Dual G4/450, Mac OS X Server 10.4.2 with all currently available updates.

You may have service ACLs set.
In Server admin, go to the info panel of the server, select settings and click the access tab.

HTH
- Leland

Hi Leland,

I can confirm that in my case, the server is letting all Users and Groups access all Services and FTP is still not working.

Mac OS X Server 10.4.3 has just been released and I have not upgraded yet. I am awaiting initial reports in case there are any major problems and I will report back if FTP works after I update to 10.4.3.

Thanks,
Dan

I've upgraded to 10.4.3 and FTP still does not work.

next thing to try is to confirm that the user has a login shell.
Look in WGM under the advanced tab.

You could also try creating a new user & testing to see if that user can log into the ftp server.

-Leland

I have the exact same problem... Since upgrading my server to Tiger ( now running 10.4.3 ) FTP hasn't worked at all. The service seems to run correctly, but I don't think it is taking log in credentials from the existing user list. I get incorrect user / password under any cred, even admin and root. I have created new passwords, reset old ones, deleted users, created new users, nothing. I think that the ftp conf file must be corrupt, but I'm not sure how you reinstall the FTP server on OS X Server.

Thanks in advance, martin jones

Yes, the users have login shells.

They are all on /bin/bash.

Still does not work.

Thanks though.

Pepi,

I was having the very same problem. After some Googling, I discovered that something Bad had happened to my /Library/FTPServer/Configuration/ftpaccess. After stopping the FTP service and backing up the existing version, I copied the ftpaccess.default to ftpaccess, restarted the server, and I was back in business.

Of course, I had to go back to Server Admin and adjust things, but at least things are back in working order.

Hope that helps.

I resolved my access denied issue by deleting all of the ftp server settings...

library > ftpserver > configuration >

I deleted all of the config files that did not end in .default

The ftp server reverted to default settings when i restarted the service, and I have full access to the server by ftp again

Thanks Martin.

I am now able to login through FTP as well using absolute default settings. I will set-up my custom settings one by one to see if a specific setting is what prevented FTP access. I will report back to this thread if I find a specific setting is preventing login.

Thanks again.

I'm not totally sure, but I think it was upgrading from 10.3.9 to 10.4 that broke my ftp server.