[NBLUG/talk] Debian vs. Others

[troy]

On Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 04:55:56PM -0500, Chris White wrote:
> As an aside to this discussion, I noticed that Mark was using Red Hat
> 9.  I can't seem to locate it on Red Hat's Web site (and their FTP
> server has been full up), but I tried http://mirror.nblug.org and
> found it.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that I at first I
> wasn't able to download it.  The HTTP server says the files are
> forbidden.  Then I tried a Linux ftp client.  I can't do an ls on the
> ftp server, nor can I download any files.
> 
> ftp> ls *.iso 227 Entering Passive Mode (208,201,242,2,235,215) ftp:
> connect: Connection refused ftp> prompt Interactive mode off.  ftp>
> mget *.iso ftp: connect: Connection refused ftp> pwd 257
> "/pub/mirror/redhat/9/en/iso" is current directory.  ftp> get
> shrike-i386-disc1.iso local: shrike-i386-disc1.iso remote:
> shrike-i386-disc1.iso 227 Entering Passive Mode (208,201,242,2,33,27)
> ftp: connect: Connection refused
> 
> Then I thought, I'll try FTP Explorer on WinDoze.  I got right in and
> I'm downloading the files.  So, let me see: my Web browser (Mozilla)
> doesn't work, the Red Hat Linux ftp client doesn't work, but a WinDoze
> FTP client does.  Is this a bug or a feature? :-)  Any ideas?

Just a guess: The windows ftp client doesn't use a passive connection
while the others do.  A passive connection usually requires that the
server allows access to arbitrary ports for the ftp data channel.  The
nblug server firewall is certainly configured with a very few open
ports.  

Now the question is: Does the server still run portsentry and if so has
it now blocked Chris's IP address?


-troy