trying to ftp to a winXP server >> failure

[hook]

first the story (skip unless you are really interested in it!):
i'm the admin of our faculty's students' homepage. i use phpnuke, just because i don't have enough time and nerves to build a "proper" one.
thi thing is that the webspace was bought before i got to administrating it, and so it runs on a winXP with PHP and MySQL (don't ask why, i have _nothing_ with it!). the server "admin" (or whatever they are in the M$ world) didn't give me access to ssh (becuase it's not on the server, for "obvious security reasons") and gave me a simple ftp account, with which i would gladly live if it weren't for a minor fault: THE WRETCHED THING DOESN'T WANT TO FTP FROM MY LINUX PARTITION (nor from any other linux box!!)!!! ...i contacted the guy several times, and after 3 months (!) he found out that he did in fact have something wrongly set in the config, and from that on ftp actually worked for one day ...just so i was able to remove the whole phpnuke (i had to, becuase of some stupid error!). but after i wanted to install it back, it didn't work again!!

question:

why can't i ftp in linux (neither via ncftp nor via gftp) to a winXP server, but in winXP it works?
...are my settings wrong, or are the server's settings wrong? ...or what?!?

the thing is that everytime that more then 3 files are ftp-ed (unrelatd to direction of the transfer), it disconects me and even when it kinda works it skips files for no reason at all!!!
but if i ftp every file for itself, it works (again for no apparent reason!!!)

i'm confuzed, angered, pissed off and i could think of many other unpleasant states i'm in ATM because of this!
_________________
tea+free software+law=hook

(deep inside i'm still a tux's little helper)

[tgoodaire]

It sounds to me that something is still messed up on the server. I don't think that there are any settings in ncftp that could be messing you up. I mean. All you do is specify a username and password. I feel sorry for you. Working with a lousy sys admin is no fun. Trust me. I have one here at work.
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I bent my wookie.

[hook]

well... i kinda found the problem: it's a firewall problem (from his side!)
for some reason m$ built-in firewalls bisbehave to *nix systems
_________________
tea+free software+law=hook

(deep inside i'm still a tux's little helper)

[credmp]

A firewall that filters out *NIX systems... thats quite something... how, besides looking at OS fingerprints would one do that?

FTP is FTP, even M$'es FTP implementation does adhere to the RFC enough to allow ncftp and the likes to talk to it...

perhaps your box is just not within the range of allowed IPs that are allowed to connect to it. Kinda like a well configured tcp_wrappers will only allow access from certain IP ranges on *NIX...

regards

[hook]

maybe i made myself unclear ...sorry, my mistake

it's not the IP ...because when i do it from the same machine only using (my brother's) winxp it works, and when i do it from other linux machines (out of our household) it still doesnt' work.

...then a friend of mine, who uses both linux and windows said that he had the same problem with his winxp server, and he checked it up, and it (to everyone's surprise) got out to be a problem with the firewall itself (not his configuration), so he just removed the firewall and since then he didn't get this error anymore ...beats me, but he says it works

btw: he's not a noob ...FAR from it!!!
_________________
tea+free software+law=hook

(deep inside i'm still a tux's little helper)

[Dalrain]

Well, I doubt MS is really that bad....have you tried switching to passive FTP if you weren't using it before? Or active from passive? (PORT or PASV I think are the commands...?)

[flanksteak]

I think Dalrain is correct. If I remember correctly, MS FTP clients automatically switch to passive connections when necessary (a neat little trick). Linux clients don't, and must be configured to do so with the 'passive' command. Try that and see what happens.