FTP in active mode may show port 21 open?
 

It was informed the FTP site below:

81.130.197.164

With the tip: "You will also have to unselect Passive FTP in the Tools – Internet Options – Browsing of IE. If you use a different browser like Firefox you will have to download an add-on to make it work. We use a secure link with our firewall so passive FTP connections don’t work."

I can not connect to it. Tried IE, fireFTP, ftp(in linux Konsole), ..., and nothig.

I also tried nmap, it show:

root@capim:/home/cristiano# nmap -A -T4 -PN 81.130.197.164

Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2010-09-12 11:50 BRT
Interesting ports on host81-130-197-164.in-addr.btopenworld.com (81.130.197.164):
Not shown: 994 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
80/tcp open http Microsoft IIS webserver 7.5
|_ html-title: 403 - Forbidden: Access is denied.
110/tcp open pop3 MS Exchange 2007 pop3d
|_ pop3-capabilities: STLS TOP UIDL
143/tcp open imap Microsoft Exchange 2007 imapd
|_ imap-capabilities: IMAP4 STARTTLS IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS LOGINDISABLED LITERAL+ IDLE NAMESPACE CHILDREN
443/tcp open ssl/http Microsoft IIS webserver 7.5
|_ sslv2: server still supports SSLv2
|_ html-title: IIS7
993/tcp open ssl/imap Microsoft Exchange 2007 imapd
|_ imap-capabilities: AUTH=GSSAPI IMAP4 AUTH=NTLM AUTH=PLAIN UIDPLUS IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ IDLE NAMESPACE CHILDREN
995/tcp open ssl/pop3 MS Exchange 2007 pop3d
|_ pop3-capabilities: USER SASL(NTLM GSSAPI PLAIN) TOP UIDL
Warning: OSScan results may be unreliable because we could not find at least 1 open and 1 closed port
Device type: general purpose
Running: Microsoft Windows Vista|2008
OS details: Microsoft Windows Vista SP0 or SP1 or Server 2008 SP1
Service Info: OS: Windows

TRACEROUTE (using port 110/tcp)
HOP RTT ADDRESS
1 1.33 192.168.1.1
2 10.01 10.12.0.1
3 10.73 201-75-168-1-nd.cpe.vivax.com.br (201.75.168.1)
4 22.02 fe-0-2-0.ar1.GRU2.gblx.net (64.210.104.165)
5 9.15 ebt-C2-dist01.sjc.embratel.net.br (200.230.219.102)
6 10.81 ebt-P11-1-core03.spo.embratel.net.br (200.230.0.74)
7 142.97 ebt-G0-3-3-2-tcore01.spo.embratel.net.br (200.230.251.193)
8 132.97 ebt-T0-0-3-0-intl01.nyk.embratel.net.br (200.230.251.78)
9 132.71 ebt-T0-6-3-0-intl02.nyk.embratel.net.br (200.230.251.38)
10 154.97 sl-crs3-nyc-0-2-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.223.26.197)
11 219.82 109.159.248.65
12 232.13 217.41.222.177
13 157.05 sl-crs1-rly-0-0-3-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.145)
14 150.94 sl-crs1-dc-0-2-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.25.20)
15 146.74 sl-st31-ash-0-1-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.19.230)
16 154.93 sl-btglo1-309394-0.sprintlink.net (144.228.205.34)
17 ...
18 256.19 host81-130-197-164.in-addr.btopenworld.com (81.130.197.164)

OS and Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 180.65 seconds

I was expecting port 21 to be open. Or port 21 may be closed for active FTP?

What may be going wrong?

What more I need to ask for the server admin?

I know USER and PASSWORD but when I try to connect it even is asked.

Is it possible to connect to a active FTP using linux ftp command line utility?

Unless port 21 is open or re-assigned, you probably can't connect via FTP. Port 21 is used by the client to initiate the FTP connection and nothing can happen until that initiation is complete. You should probably contact the owner of the server to find out how to connect.

By the way, I hope you asked before running nmap on their server. A lot of people don't take kindly to nmap scans unless they've given their permission.