Hi

I have an issue which hopefully someone can help with. We have a corporate LAN protected by firewalls and provisions for various DMZ's. We do not allow direct FTP from any client to an outside resource, however FTP between the corporate LAN and the DMZ's has been allowed.

I have a user request to be able to FTP to the DMZ server as a stepping stone to the outside world.

The DMZ server will be running a flavour of LINUX

The question is, is it possible for the client to submit a file by ftp to the DMZ server that is then automatically sent onwards from the DMZ server to the end site, without manual intervention.

i.e. user ftp's a file to ftp.dmz.server.com destined for ftp.external.com which the server can process and send onto ftp.external.com without someone having to monitor the files and actually type ftp ftp.external.com to send the file.

To complicate matters the ftp destinations (external) may be many and varied so we would not be able to use an address book type scenario.

TIA

My personal say as an Administrator is this: If it's a client that requests this quite frequently, why not setup a tunnel or forward thru the DMZ machine to the machine on the backend?

If they're going to be connecting from a static connection, limit your firewall only to allow that one connection with FTP, etc.

Unfortunately company policy dictates (or at least the senior network administrator - of which I am a mere underlig - has dictated) that this will never happen. i.e. and internal client having direct access to FTP sites. For my 2 cents worth I think he is overcomplicating what should be a simple request.

Anyway, until such time as I can make these decisions I am stuck with his rule - and hence the need for an FTP relay or some such software device.

Thanks for the reply.