[xtian]

Strange response from remote server:
[snip]
[adsl-63-197-000-000:~] xtian% ftp ftp.land.com
Connected to ftp.land.com.
220 FTP Server
Name (ftp.land.com:xtian): chris
331 Password required for chris.
Password:
230 User chris logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> ls -a
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||41183|)
200 EPRT command successful
[/snip]

See the line "ftp> ls -a"? This is supposed to list the directory contents [http://www.seotoolbox.com/html-issues/easy-ftp.html], instead sends a cpommand to enter passive mode. Whats going on???

[Xeo]

Originally posted by xtian:
Strange response from remote server:
[snip]
[adsl-63-197-000-000:~] xtian% ftp ftp.land.com
Connected to ftp.land.com.
220 FTP Server
Name (ftp.land.com:xtian): chris
331 Password required for chris.
Password:
230 User chris logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> ls -a
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||41183|)
200 EPRT command successful
[/snip]

See the line "ftp> ls -a"? This is supposed to list the directory contents [http://www.seotoolbox.com/html-issues/easy-ftp.html], instead sends a cpommand to enter passive mode. Whats going on???

It's entering passive mode to send you the data (being the ASCII text making up the contents of the directory). This is normal for clients that default to passive such as Mac OS X's FTP command.

Oh, and "ls" in FTP already lists "dot" files, so adding the "-a" flag only shows you "." and ".." which aren't useful anyway. So you might as well save the keystrokes. (This is potentially server specific information though, so it may not apply to non-Mac OS X ftpd's.)

[xtian]

Originally posted by Xeo:
It's entering passive mode to send you the data (being the ASCII text making up the contents of the directory). This is normal for clients that default to passive such as Mac OS X's FTP command.

Oh. That's one of the things about ftp that I meant to understand, but never did anything about it.

Your reply suggested I should wait longer for the server to reply. I did and this is what it said:

ftp> ls /
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||33903|)
200 EPRT command successful
421 Service not available, remote server timed out. Connection closed
ftp>

I'm no closer to using OS X UNIX to ftp to my web server.

[Xeo]

Originally posted by xtian:
Oh. That's one of the things about ftp that I meant to understand, but never did anything about it.

Your reply suggested I should wait longer for the server to reply. I did and this is what it said:


I'm no closer to using OS X UNIX to ftp to my web server.

You can try turning off passive mode and see if that helps. Once FTP'd to the server, type "passive" and it should say that passive is off. Then try the command again.

[xtian]

that did it xeo, thanks for your help. xtian

[hotani]

Ok, I just found this thread and am having exactly the same problem. However, turning off passive mode only resulted in this:

Code:
Passive mode: off; fallback to active mode: off.
ftp> dir
500 Illegal EPRT command
200 PORT command successful

and then it sits there doing nothing. Connecting via clients like Transmit work fine, but i need CLI too for when I'm not sitting in front of the machine.

[hotani]

I let this go for a while but today I wanted to ftp something and realized I never found a solution. Does anyone know how to resolve this?

[wadesworld]

Turning off passive mode when a firewall is involved, will cause the connection to hang.

If CLI does not work in passive mode, chances are that there's a server or firewall problem.

[xtian]

Try a combination of:

epsv4
passive

(such as epsv4 only, or with passive, or passive only).
I don't know yet why these commands work, but they help me.

good luck
xtian

[hotani]

THANK YOU! 'epsv4' seems to do the trick.