I am not using Mionet but simply attemtping to reach the Sharespace from the internet via FTP but unable to do so.
Sharespace is connected to a Netgear rounter with port forwarding of ports 20-21 to the lan IP assigned to the sharespace. On the lan side, I can FTP to the lan assigned IP of the sharespace and see Public and Download directories as normal but when trying to access it from the WAN IP, I can not reach the sharespace.
Checking the pass through at the command prompt with the command ftp xxx.xxx.xxx.xx where x’s represent my external IP or WAN IP, I am prompted to enter an assigned user name, after that I am prompted to enter the associated user password assigned in the sharespace. That works and returns an FTP prompt. If I then enter DIR for directory, the command return 150 “here comes the directory listing” but nothing ever come and the cursor will blink forever.
In a browser window, if I enter this string, ftp://(external IP address) @ (a valid user ID) the standard screen returns requesting the password, after entering the password, no files are seen and there is no connection to the public or download directories, similar to the command prompt results above.
What is causing me not to see the sharespace directories?
This sounds like something is going wrong with the forwarding… First try doing a full reboot to your router, drive, and system. If the issue continues to occur try changing the ports you are using to forward- I always try to use “odd” port numbers (4263 for example) as these are slightly more secure than the standard ones, and work just as well. If the issue continues to occur at that point try connecting the Sharespace directly to your internet connection and try to access the sharespace from another network. If you are able to access it there than you know the issue is on the router, and you can begin further troubleshooting from there.
Good suggestion regarding the direct connection to the modem. Hadn’t thought about that.
I have resolved this problem but unfortunately, the only fix I can tace it to is one where I had created a test user but not created a private share. In the work to fix this issue I check and recheck the router ports for correct setting/mapping and attempted the use of non standard ports (other than 21) then I tried three different routers using the same settings and mapping. I disabled the SIP and other firewall protections in the router, and made everything as open as possible to no avail. Then I really stumbled on to the issue with no private shares. When I created a priviate share for this user, suddenly FTP worked again??? I removed the private share and it continued to work. It has been that way ever since–I realize this does not makes much sense given the user account creation procedure but this is what I found.
Again, the original problem I encountered and stated here was that I was always able to get verified by the Sharespace BUT the connection failed afterwards because the Sharespace NEVER sent a directory back to the client for which he was waiting so the session timed out with error 425 every time.
The only way a couple of test users could see a directoy listing after log in (using the test account I had been using) was by using the command prompt FTP tool which was not an acceptable means for access.
