McAfee, CuteFTP and ICS

[Philippe Joffroy]

Hi,
This is my fourth post on the subject and I am not
getting anywhere - stuck between McAfee, Globalscape and
Microsoft.

The problem is: CuteFTP times out when connecting to an
FTP server - only when used over a shared ADSL connection
(main Internet access for a small home wireless network).
The IPv6 ICF service is disabled on my machine as I use
McAfee Personal Firewall Plus instead. Obviously the
ICF / ICS service is active.

Before I go on, everything works fine over a narrowband
dial-up connection.

The symptoms: when trying to access an FTP server over
ADSL (ftp6.nero.com for example), the following messages
can be seen:

STATUS:> Connect: Sunday 20:47:38 10-26-2003
STATUS:> Connecting to ftp6.nero.com
STATUS:> Connecting to ftp6.nero.com (ip =
213.144.20.196)
STATUS:> Socket connected. Waiting for welcome
message...

The welcome message never reaches the application.

In Personal Firewall, CuteFTP is seen as active and using
port 21 - showing that there is communication with the
FTP server. Interestingly, over the narrowband
connection, Personal Firewall shows TWO open ports for
CuteFTP: 21 (FTP standard) + a variabl 5-digit number.

So my take on this is that something is preventing the
server acknowledgement from filtering through, and it is
either ICS or Personal Firewall Plus, or a combination of
both.

I have checked all the settings I know about and they're
all fine.

Any clues?
Thanks

Philippe

 

[Ron Lowe]

Hi,
This is my fourth post on the subject and I am not
getting anywhere - stuck between McAfee, Globalscape and
Microsoft.

The problem is: CuteFTP times out when connecting to an
FTP server - only when used over a shared ADSL connection
(main Internet access for a small home wireless network).
The IPv6 ICF service is disabled on my machine as I use
McAfee Personal Firewall Plus instead. Obviously the
ICF / ICS service is active.

Before I go on, everything works fine over a narrowband
dial-up connection.

The symptoms: when trying to access an FTP server over
ADSL (ftp6.nero.com for example), the following messages
can be seen:

STATUS:> Connect: Sunday 20:47:38 10-26-2003
STATUS:> Connecting to ftp6.nero.com
STATUS:> Connecting to ftp6.nero.com (ip =
213.144.20.196)
STATUS:> Socket connected. Waiting for welcome
message...

The welcome message never reaches the application.

In Personal Firewall, CuteFTP is seen as active and using
port 21 - showing that there is communication with the
FTP server. Interestingly, over the narrowband
connection, Personal Firewall shows TWO open ports for
CuteFTP: 21 (FTP standard) + a variabl 5-digit number.

So my take on this is that something is preventing the
server acknowledgement from filtering through, and it is
either ICS or Personal Firewall Plus, or a combination of
both.

I have checked all the settings I know about and they're
all fine.

Any clues?
Thanks

Philippe

It looks like you need to clarify what you are trying to
do and exactly what is broken.

You are trying to contact ftp6.nero.com
And you talk about IPv6 firewalls.
But you then go on to show a connection failure using IPv4.

So are you trying to use IPv6, or IPv4?

My ( IPv6 aware ) lookup on ftp6.nero.com reports only
an IPv4 (A) address: 213.144.20.196, no IPv6 (AAAA ) record.
What makes you think this ftp site is ipv6 aware?
It looks like this site is ipv4 only to me.

I also doubt whether CuteFTP is IPv6 aware.

I suspect the IPv6 stuff is a red herring.

What this looks like is simple a case of the FTP data connection failing.
This is common behind firewalls and NAT ( Internet sharing. )
Problem is, there's more than just port 21 involved in FTP.
It's a nasty protocol to pass through firewalls and NAT.

Try setting Passive (PASV) mode on the FTP program.

This will usually fix this issue if it's a client-side problem.

 

[Guest]

Ron,
Thanks for a quick answer. Apologies for painting a
confused picture, I was trying to throw in one post all
fatcs and figures I felt were relevant to the problem.

So, what I am trying to do is simply to get CuteFTP to
work over my broadband connection. The nero FTP
connection is just one example, I would get similar
messages on other FTP servers.

It is definitely a client-side FTP data connection
problem, and CuteFTP is already set up with PASV mode.

I mentioned the (IPv6 ICF) and (ICF / ICS) services as
possible causes because CuteFTP transfers work well over
a non-shared dial-up connection, PROVIDED that the IPv6
ICF service is disabled.

In other words, I have narrowed down the analysis to:

1. Dial-up connection, no ICF, no ICS = CuteFTP transfers
are ok.
2. Broadband connection, no ICF, ICS activated = CuteFTP
sees FTP servers but can't connect and times out.

I must add that with ICS disabled, everything is fine
with the broadband connection as well.

Hopefully the above makes sense.

Best regards,

Philippe

 

[Supertech]

Just a thought,

While using your ICS connection is XP turning on the XP firewall?
If so make sure that you disable it as it will not work with it on.

Supertech

 

[Supertech]

One more thing to try on the Microsoft end. Go here

http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/ports.asp

This was posted in the Microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin
news group it has info on the ways to enable the internal firewall to pass
FTP among
other features...

Supertech

 

[Philippe Joffroy]

Thank you for your replies, I will try the URL you
suggested in a separate post. In answering your question
below, I do not believe that XP turns on ICF as the IPv6
IFC service remains disabled (and the broadband shared
connection doesn't display the firewall icon).
Regards