Port problems [solved, lock away]
matisyahu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I need to use an SFTP for my internship, but I can't connect to it for the life of me, and I suspect that my ISP is blocking the pertinent port.
I forwarded the port (22) but canyouseeme.org said Connection Refused, so I bypassed my router entirely and it still says Connection Refused on that port. I'm not running Windows (or any) Firewall, which I know is dangerous but I'm just trying to get this to work. The Windows Firewall service isn't even running.
Is there anything I could be overlooking, in Windows XP or elsewhere, that could be interfering with this? Is there any way I can resolve this on my own or is there a conversation with my ISP in the future?
I forwarded the port (22) but canyouseeme.org said Connection Refused, so I bypassed my router entirely and it still says Connection Refused on that port. I'm not running Windows (or any) Firewall, which I know is dangerous but I'm just trying to get this to work. The Windows Firewall service isn't even running.
Is there anything I could be overlooking, in Windows XP or elsewhere, that could be interfering with this? Is there any way I can resolve this on my own or is there a conversation with my ISP in the future?
i dont even like matisyahu and i dont know why i picked this username
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Also you are referring to SecureFTP and not SimpleFTP right?
Unless I'm misunderstanding, not necessarily. You're trying to connect to an SFTP server on another computer, correct? Port 22 is the port the server uses to accept incoming connections. I agree that it sounds like the port isn't open at the other end if it's saying connection refused (unless your ISP is blocking a large range of ports from your IP, which could prevent you from opening an outgoing connection).
Are you sure all the information you're using to connect is correct (hostname, protocol, port) and are you sure the target computer is up and working? Is there anyone you can check with to confirm that there are no problems with the target computer's SFTP server?
Is the SFTP server configured to accept non local connections? Try telnet 127.0.0.1 22 and telnet yourexternalip 22, see if the localhost address connects and the external address fails.
Oh and checking the SFTP access logs would be an idea.
I'm trying to connect to an SFTP server on another computer, yes. But canyouseeme.org is a different website (not the server) that lets you see if ports are open on your computer, I should have been more clear in the OP. My networking knowledge is minimal so I'm sure I'm bungling some terminology.
I'll try bringing down my netbook and connecting it directly to my DSL modem, but since that doesn't work on my desktop I suspect it won't work on the netbook either. It didn't work on any of my 3 computers when I had the ports forwarded on my router (I assume I did it right, I've forwarded ports on my old router which I unfortunately dont have anymore, and I followed the instructions on portforward.com to a T, and tried it multiple times).
Both of these telnets failed, I get "Could not open connection to the host, on port 22. Connect failed". Other employees can access the server from their houses, so it works for non local connections. I don't think I have access to the access logs.
Ok, canyouseeme shows you open ports on your computer, the port should be open on the remote computer *not* your computer. See if you can ping the remote computer first. If using XP type start, run, cmd (opens black screen with a flashing cursor), and type ping remotecomputer. So if the SFTP server was running on google.com you would type ping google.com. If the ping doesn't fail you can at least reach the remote computer, if not you may be trying to access an internal server that the other employees have access to via a VPN link.
Can you try pinging the remote computer and reply. You should also restart your firewall asap.
You would only need port forwarding if you are running the SFTP server yourself and wanted external devices to have access to it, it is *not* necessary to access an external server, undo the changes you've made to the port forwarding rules on your router. You don't need them.
Some basic networking, when you run an SFTP server (as the company you're trying to connect to is doing) the server has to run on a static port so other machines can find the service. In this case it's port 22 which is a well known port for the SFTP service (for simplicity anyway
The ping times out, time to get in touch with my boss then I suppose.
Just as an aside, shouldn't I be able to see the port as open on my computer with that website?
If you were running an SFTP server on your computer you would see that port as open on your computer. You aren't running this service so you shouldn't see it as open. When you try to connect to the remote SFTP server you *are* using a port on your computer but it is randomly assigned (it will be *way* above 22) but it's not listening for a connection it's trying to make one.
Bottom line, to connect to a remote SFTP service port 22 does not need to be open or accessible on your computer.
The ping timing out does not necessarily indicate the machine is inaccessible for you, they could just be droping ICMP (ping) packets at the firewall. You can try putting the server name or IP into Firefox or Internet Explorer and see if you get any response, so if the server is www.google.com try [url]www.google.com:22[/url] in the address bar of IE or Firefox.
If you can, talk to some of your coworkers or the companies IT crowd and ask them about the SFTP setup.
The server company says you need to "enable shell access in the control panel" of their website. The SFTP account I'm using is shared, so would I be right in assuming that the shell access for that account has been enabled, or does it need to be IP specific in any way?
This shouldn't be a problem for you, if it's a shared account then this should already be correctly configured.
I gave you some bad advice there, seems Firefox and IE wouldn't be able to open an SFTP connection anyway, sorry about that.
I assume you've already followed the instructions here: http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Ssh . If not try the following, download WINSCP from here: http://winscp.net/eng/index.php , this is a free, graphical SFTP client for Windows. When you run Winscp click the new button, enter the connection settings you're boss gave you and click login. Sorry if this seems obvious but you didn't mention how you were trying to connect to the server.
I really don't think you'll need a VPN connection to access this machine, try using winscp and let us know if there's any change (including any error messages).