I've been using my ftp server for a while and it works well. The problem is some people (all windows xp users) cannot access my ftp server. I didn't believe them at first because it works well on my local network, from my school, from UIUC, at a friends home who is also running xp, and from my aunt's house in texas. I went to a friend's home and tried to figure out what they were doing wrong. Both Opera and IE timed out when I tried to access my ftp server. I tried using the console version of ftp and it let me log in, but it crashed when I tried to issue any data request type command (ls, pwd, etc). This friend has a router and a firewall. Another friend of mine on dial-up with no firewall also had similar problems. What is causing this problem? Is it something on my end or theirs? How would I fix this?

Here is my config:

# This is a basic ProFTPD configuration file.
# It establishes a single server and a single anonymous login.
# It assumes that you have a user/group "nobody" and "ftp"
# for normal/anonymous operation.
ServerName"ProFTPD Default Installation"
#ServerTypestandalone
ServerTypeinetd
DefaultServeron
# Port 21 is the standard FTP port.
Port21
# Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new dirs and files
# from being group and world writable.
Umask022
# To prevent DoS attacks, set the maximum number of child processes
# to 30. If you need to allow more than 30 concurrent connections
# at once, simply increase this value. Note that this ONLY works
# in standalone mode, in inetd mode you should use an inetd server
# that allows you to limit maximum number of processes per service
# (such as xinetd)
MaxInstances5
# Set the user and group that the server normally runs at.
Usernobody
Groupnogroup
# This next option is required for NIS or NIS+ to work properly:
#PersistentPasswd off
SystemLog/var/log/proftpd.log
TransferLog/var/log/xferlog
# Normally, we want files to be overwriteable.
<Directory /*>
AllowOverwriteon
</Directory>
# A basic anonymous FTP server configuration.
# To enable this, remove the user ftp from /etc/ftpusers.
<Anonymous ~ftp/pub>
RequireValidShelloff
Userftp
Groupftp
# We want clients to be able to login with "anonymous" as well as "ftp"
UserAliasanonymous ftp
# Limit the maximum number of anonymous logins
MaxClients5
# We want 'welcome.msg' displayed at login, and '.message' displayed
# in each newly chdired directory.
DisplayLoginwelcome.msg
DisplayFirstChdir.message
# Limit WRITE everywhere in the anonymous chroot
<Limit WRITE>
DenyAll
</Limit>
# An upload directory that allows storing files but not retrieving
# or creating directories.
<Directory upload/>
<Limit READ RMD DELE MKD>
DenyAll
</Limit>
<Limit STOR CWD>
AllowAll
</Limit>
</Directory>
</Anonymous>

My guess is this has something to do with the difference between Passive and Active FTP. In short, Active FTP is used by most stand-alone FTP clients while Passive FTP is used in browsers. Check if /var/log/proftpd.log is showing something about a passive connection being refused. If it does try inserting this line in the <Global> section:
"PassivePorts 51000 51999"
Ah, you don't have a <Global> section. Just insert it in the first part of your config file.

More on:
http://proftpd.linux.co.uk/docs/dire...iguration.html

No, my /var/log/proftpd.log file doesn't say anything about passive connections being refused.

Does it say anything at all? Any errors?

Please let us know if you can ftp from your local machine to your local ftp server - both with command-line and browser.

I see this in lots of places, but nothing else suspicious.

FTP no transfer timeout, disconnected

Yes I can ftp to it locally with the command line and the browser.
Thanks.

Ummmm... one of my friends can now access the ftp server and I changed nothing. I'm still waiting to hear from the other one. This is weird.