Gaming FTP server from school network

[metamaster]

Ok, so I got an FTP server up and running, and even tested it. But from my school network, I can't seem to connect, yet I've pinged my ip and tested the server with this with success. By the way, I'm not using the default port.
Anyone know what I can do to get this working?

 

[Son of Science]

Your school network? I'm sure they were smart enough to block FTP servers.

 

[metamaster]

Is there a workaround, like a proxy of some sort?
And they didn't even block command prompt, don't think they would have blocked ftp servers.

 

[Son of Science]

Do they have something that blocks certain sites?

 

[metamaster]

Yeah, they do. But I don't get any error message when I try to connect to the server, unlike the websites they block.

 

[Son of Science]

What are you using to connect to the server? Also, what program is blocking the sites?

 

[metamaster]

I tried through the browser, the command prompt, explorer and some stand alone client I downloaded. For the websites, putting an s after http worked fine last year, but they fixed that, so I'm going to try a proxy next time.
I get a message stating why the site is blocked, and that's it.

 

[Cyan]

By the way, I'm not using the default port.
Anyone know what I can do to get this working?

Did you try the default port ?
Schools might block unusual port, but allow 80 and 21/20 ?


Set your FTP server to listen on port 80 (but some server could refuse to work on that port, mainly because you can't open the reserved port 79).

If you can't, you can try either to set your router to redirect port80 to the internal server port.
or a port tunneling software (but it could need SOCKS proxy instead).

But you need to open/forward 2 ports for a FTP.
20 and 21 if you are in Active state. (or Port and Port-1)
21 and random range if you are in Passive state.

Both can be a problem to pass through your school port blocking.
You could connect but not transfer anything.

Edit :
You could try to set your server to allow only 1 "random range" port while connecting in PASSIVE mode.
Ex. :
• On your server :
Serve on port : 80 (Schools allow outgoing data on that port, it's the default HTTP)
Passive port range : 443 to 443 (Schools allow outgoing data on that port, it's the default HTTPS)

• On your router, open port 80 and 443.

• At your school, set the FTP client to use passive mode.


A good school admin should detect that port 443 is not secure and won't allow outgoing data.

 

[FAST6191]

Assuming it is not a setup error (you left it trying ASCII transfer when you should be using binary, active vs passive or something like that) I should also mention some some schools do have a measure of packet inspection (especially if they route it through a proxy bank)- ping is ICMP and not usually blocked and ftptest probably uses FTPtest's own site/server to do the deed- you are essentially remote controlling ftptest.net via standard internet traffic.
Workaround- again assuming it is not as simple as switching ports it is VPN or nothing really at which point you might as well kick FTP in the head (it is unsecure after all) and use SSH/SFTP (note SFTP is entirely different to FTPS).

 

[metamaster]

Assuming it is not a setup error (you left it trying ASCII transfer when you should be using binary, active vs passive or something like that) I should also mention some some schools do have a measure of packet inspection (especially if they route it through a proxy bank)- ping is ICMP and not usually blocked and ftptest probably uses FTPtest's own site/server to do the deed- you are essentially remote controlling ftptest.net via standard internet traffic.
Workaround- again assuming it is not as simple as switching ports it is VPN or nothing really at which point you might as well kick FTP in the head (it is unsecure after all) and use SSH/SFTP (note SFTP is entirely different to FTPS).

SFTP? How do I set it up/what's the main difference between it and FTP?

@Cyan: I'll try that Monday, it might work

Also, I tried a proxy at school, but all the sites were blocked because "anonymizer sites are not allowed"... Guess I wasn't the first to try