Ftp port number change?

Legacy Products My Book Live
1

Found out today that my isp blocks standard ftp incoming ports and would not unblock. Would not give me an answer when asked about my options other than upgrading to commercial account. How can I change the ftp port number on my mybook live? Trying to set up as security camera storage. Cameras will upload still images on motion detection.

2

This requires SSH access to the MBL.

Edit the file

/etc/vsftpd.conf

ftpd_banner="Welcome to MyBookLive"
listen=yes
listen_port=21
accept_timeout=60
connect_timeout=60
......

Note that line 3:  listen_port=xxxx  that’s the line you’d change.

EDIT:  You will have to RESTART the FTP server to make this change take effect. 

I do not know if such changes survive reboots and FW upgrades, though.

By the way, if your ISP is using Packet Inspection, this will not work…  Packet Inspection actually looks at the protocol headers and would determine that it’s FTP traffic regardless of what TCP port is being used.

3

The /etc/vsftpfd.conf file just can’t survive a firmware update but survives everything else.

4

?

5

I have no idea what to do.  I have enabled ssh but now I am lost. How do I access this stuff to edit it?

6

Yes, this is how you change the ftp port number that the MBL uses.  However, as you are trying to get around your ISP’s port block, this is probably not where you want to make this change.

You’re setup is probably like this:

MBL <–port 21---- Router <–port 21---- Internet

You want the change the port number on your Router to map to the ftp service on the MBL.

You should be able to create a port map entry on your Router to allow incoming connections to 8021 on the WAN side to connect to a specific IP address on a particular port on the LAN side.  Now your setup should look like this:

MBL <–port 21---- Router <–port 8021---- Internet

How to do this varies by Router brand and firmware.  Look under “Security” or “NAT”, or maybe “Firewall”?

To use this, you need to create an account on the MBL, and enable FTP, and you have to set your client into “passive mode” or else the client will try to connect to the MBL for the data on a different port and won’t be able to.

You realize, however, that you’ll be passing information in the clear over the internet, including your userid and password to your MBL account.

7

Hi,

It has been a long time since this post was created, but somebody may be able to help?

I have followed the instructions and altered my listen_port in th /etc/vsftpd.conf file.  However ftp only responds on port 21.  I rebooted the box, checked the file and the value is still sound, but ftp only works on 21 still.

Can anybody lend a hand please?

I don’t know the exact make and model as I’m at work atm, (its black and 2TB, bught this Christmas 2011)

Many thanks

8

Hi,

As a correction to my post above, it is now working, for some reason it took some time to take effect.

Regards

9

D’oh, 

I can’t believe I forgot this critical step…

If you change the port number, you have to manually RESTART the FTP daemon.