Setting up a FTP Server in Windows XP

[soporific]

Hi there,

I am 5 days into my Odyssey of trying to get a large file onto a server somewhere. One of my options is to set up an FTP server on my home computer so someone can grab the file off me so they can host it. I failed miserably.

It doesn't seem very hard from the "how-to" articles on the net ... these are the ones i've looked at:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1491

http://www.ftpplanet.com/tutorial/

http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/webm...cle.php/3077081

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/qa/qa20030918.shtml

I may as well outline my steps so far:

1) check that IIS is configured properly.

- Yes it is. I have confirmed this part - in IIS, when I highlight FTP servers, i can see the one i've setup under this, and in the right hand pane, it says the server is running.

2) In the Properties tab for my FTP server, the port is set to 21. In the 'security accounts' tab, i've tried all the possible variations of allowing anonymous connections. In the 'Home directory' tab i have made sure the local path is correct and that 'Read' is selected.

3) I have configured Windows Firewall to allow an FTP service by going into Advanced Settings, the services tab, and selecting FTP server.

4) I have configured my router to forward port 21 to the internal IP address of the host computer running the FTP server. I file share with emule so i already knew how to do forward ports.

That should be it, as far as the online guides say. I should be able to connect to my server ...

So what am i doing wrong? Thanks in advance for any help ...

[cluberti]

Have you tried it on a port other than 21? Some ISPs block unsolicited requests to well known ports, but running it on a known port (as a test) like 3389 or 22 may help get things going.

[soporific]

Have you tried it on a port other than 21? Some ISPs block unsolicited requests to well known ports, but running it on a known port (as a test) like 3389 or 22 may help get things going.

yep. 2 or 3 other ports. I turned off my ISP's port blocking as soon as they advised us about the service. But thanks for your reply!

[sherpya]

try filezilla ftp server, it's more easy and configurable

[tain]

Can you connect to the server via your LAN?

[briton]

Are you sure it's worth it? However good your bandwidth is, your upload bandwidth is seriously small compared with your download. Once you get hit by some simultaneous "downloads" (uploads to you), it is likely to ground to a halt anyway - or as near to it as makes no difference to the users. (For example, my 3.0Mbps DSl connection uploads at 384Kbps limit - I know exactly how well the upload performs because I use VoIP all the time and upload is the killer for that as it can't be allocated too easily.)

If you have a T1 connection or if you are happy with your upload bandwidth, you would do well to bang together a cheap box and run a Linux server package on it to keep yourself secure and you can set it up and forget about it. Last time I investigated there were some simple Linux distros which did nothing but that and, of course, they were free (and you didn't have to learn anything very much to set them up - just download an ISO, burn a CD and let it install into your dedicated server box which needs little attached to it except a mobo and enough storage at good speed for your downloads - as you control it through your LAN, you can even remove it's monitor etc if you want once you got it set up).

You can get straightforward bandwidth limited hosting for very small amounts (one of mine costs me $12 a year but I choose large storage of 1000MB and unlimited email addresses at the cost of some serious bandwidth limitation at 2.5gib per month - not enough for you I presume) and some of the domain name guys like godaddy offer "free" hosting (ad supported of course). Then again you could shop around for a friendly host - windizupdate is hosted free in your part of the world and their host might act friendly and suggest someone. Finally, you could put the whole project (projects) on sourceforge and get some dev management thrown in.

Just some ideas. (Oh and I'd offer but so far, my bandwidth limitation isn't going to handle that massive patcher unless it gets broken down so that updates to it don't need a complete download. You don't need someone offering a site which closes down as soon as people start downloading the latest.)

Edited April 24, 2007 by briton

[jcarle]

They may sound stupid, but if there's a red X on the Default FTP Site in the IIS management console, then you haven't started the service. If that's the case, right click on the Default FTP Site and choose Start.