FTP Server & Port Forwarding

[hab1966]

I want to run a FTP server in the office that is accessible from the internet. My plan is to set the FTP server on a fixed IP address PC on the network and then set the firewall/router to forward all FTP access to that PC. That seems to make sense to me, but happy to hear if im wrong in doing this. There will be nothing else running on this PC so security shouldnt be an issue.

However, what happens if someone else on our network, tries to access an internet based FTP server (not ours). Will the firewall/router manage all his data packets so he gets them to his PC or will they default to being sent to our local FTP server? Im guessing they should arrive at his PC, but i would like to get confirmation before i waste time setting this up!

[xiphias]

Port forwarding only directs traffic inbound. An outbound connection to another ftp server will not send the packets back to port 21, it will send them back to the outgoing port on the router (usually a random number) - so that it will go straight back to the pc.

[Fittster]

Wouldn't sftp be a better idea?

[hab1966]

Thanks.

We are stuck with standard FTP as its being hosted on an embedded system that doesnt handle sftp.

(Edited to say that the server is hosted on a windows PC, the clients are the embedded systems, connecting via ethernet or gprs)

Edited by hab1966 on Friday 20th April 09:46

[Tonsko]

Patch, patch and patch again. Then patch some more. In fact, you could try making everyone who wants to connect to this server come in on 443, which forwards to 21.

[hab1966]

Tonsko said:

Patch, patch and patch again. Then patch some more. In fact, you could try making everyone who wants to connect to this server come in on 443, which forwards to 21.

Can you elaborate on the term 'patch' please?

[sneakyneil]

He means get the latest version