FTPS not working

[cmaxwell]

We just upgraded from Plesk 10.4.4 to 11.5.30 and can't seem to get FTPS to work.

I presume it should be running on port 990, but the server is not listening on that port (only 21 for FTP).

netstat -lptu | egrep 'ftp|990'
tcp        0      0 *:ftp                       *:*                         LISTEN      20354/xinetd

We've enabled FTPS on the Server > Security Policy page.

Can anyone suggest how to get it working?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[InderS]

Hello,

What error are you getting ? Also please enable the passive port range for the FTP and try now.

 

[cmaxwell]

Hello,

What error are you getting ? Also please enable the passive port range for the FTP and try now.

This is what we are getting in FileZilla when attempting to connect to ftps://server.hostname:990:

Status:	Resolving address of server.hostname
Status:	Connecting to 1.2.3.4:990...
Status:	Connection attempt failed with "ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server".

My IP is allowed/whitelisted in the server's firewall so it is not being blocked. Have tried with both active and passive mode but the same result.

Any ideas?

 

[cmaxwell]

Telnetting to port 990 doesn't work, but port 21 does - is port 990 definitely the port that Plesk runs FTPS on?

 

[InderS]

Hello,

For the SFTP access you will have to enable shell access in FTP access setting for your domain and after that try to access SFTP with the SSH port of your server.

 

[Eric Pretorious]

Hello,

For the SFTP access you will have to enable shell access in FTP access setting for your domain and after that try to access SFTP with the SSH port of your server.

Inders: I think that cmaxwell is attempting to use FTPS (i.e., SSL-encrypted FTP) - not SFTP, the SSH File Transfer Protocol.

[root@www ~]# grep -i ftp /etc/services 
fsftp            115/tcp
sftp            115/udp
...<SNIP>...
tps-data       989/tcp                 # ftp protocol, data, over TLS/SSL
ftps-data       989/udp                 # ftp protocol, data, over TLS/SSL
ftps            990/tcp                 # ftp protocol, control, over TLS/SSL
ftps            990/udp                 # ftp protocol, control, over TLS/SSL
...<SNIP>...

From the Wikipedia page, "FTPS":

FTPS (also known as FTP-ES, FTP-SSL and FTP Secure) is an extension to the commonly used File Transfer Protocol (FTP) that adds support for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) cryptographic protocols.

FTPS should not be confused with the SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), an incompatible secure file transfer subsystem for the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. It is also different from FTP over SSH, the practice of tunneling FTP through an SSH connection.

 

[cmaxwell]

Inders: I think that cmaxwell is attempting to use FTPS (i.e., SSL-encrypted FTP) - not SFTP, the SSH File Transfer Protocol.

That's correct - we want to use FTPS without enabling shell access for users, but the server does not seem to be listening on port 990.

Is anyone else's Plesk 11.5 server listening on port 990 or is Plesk's implementation of FTPS different from what I am expecting? The documentation for this is almost non-existent.

 

[cmaxwell]

After opening a ticket with Parallels on this, they confirmed that FTPS actually works on port 21 (not port 990). You need to set the FTP client to use "Require explicit FTP over TLS" for the encryption mode while still using the standard FTP protocol on port 21.

This is not included anywhere in the Plesk 11.5 documentation so it would be good if Parallels could add some information about this as FTPS usage should be encouraged over FTP for security.

Hope this helps someone else with the same query in the future.