Proftpd outside LAN what do i need?
 

Hi i am currently running the latest version of Proftpd. All computers in my LAN can access the FTP server through Internet Explorer. When i ask my friends to try to login to the server, either nothing happens or there browser freezes. My network adress given by DHCP server from my router/modem is 192.168.1.5. For anyone to access the proxy within the LAN they type ftp://openflame:@192.168.1.5 in IE and press enter, it prompts them for a password then they have acess.

I want to be able to let friends who are outside of the LAN (for example an ordinary internet user) to be able to access the FTP, I am not really concerned about security just yet, i just want people outside the LAN to be able to acess the server.

Do i need to have a static IP address or have the FTP registered somewhere for anyone to be able to acess it? Or is there some simple configuration of proftpd.conf that must be done???

ANY HELP IS VERY VERY MUCH APPRECIATED THANK YOU

First of all, you probably have a crappy home router like the rest of us. By default it does routing, NAT and DHCP in one. NAT is very important because your ISP will only give you one ip address at a time. Try any host in your LAN and browse to Your Ip Address. You will notice they all return the same one and it will not start with '192.168.' NAT translates the one ip to multiple ips on the other side (and vice versa.) There are ip addresses that fall in to the realm of private addresses. Click here to read up. The '192.168.*.*' addresses I mentioned fall into this realm. They are also know as unroutable ips. You need no routing on LANS, however so they are perfect for home routers with NAT. So how does an outside host access your inside private ip host? The simple answer is port forwarding and your router "should" support it. Look at your manual. Basically config your router to forward all packets that come on the public address to the internal address of your choice (i.e. 12.34.56.78:21 forwards to 192.168.1.78:21) The connection is transparent to the remote host.