Quick Start > Router & Firewall

Navigation: Quick Start > Router and Firewall |

Configure Wing FTP Server with a router or firewall.

Introduction

Wing FTP Server can be used in conjunction with a router or firewall by making a few adjustments in both the router/firewall and Wing Ftp Server. The router needs to be reconfigured so that any inbound FTP traffic will be routed (or forwarded) to Wing FTP Server.

Suppose you have a router or firewall directly connected to the internet with a static IP address, which for our demonstration purpose is 65.128.123.3. You have one or more computers plugged into the router, and with an internal IP addressing scheme, typically based on 192.168.1.x. In our scenario, our internal LAN is based on 192.168.1.x, and the server computer has an IP address of 192.168.1.123. When outside users connect to Wing FTP Server, they need to configure their FTP client to point to 65.128.123.3, which is the IP address of the router.

The router will monitor incoming FTP traffics and forward (route) those requests over to the Wing FTP Server on IP address 192.168.1.123. Then Wing FTP Server will process the request and send the reply back to the router, which will then forward the information back to the FTP client.

Step 1 – Configuring Wing FTP Server

The following steps will guide you in configuring Wing FTP Server to work with your router.

In the first step, you need to know the External IP address of the router.

In this demonstration, we use the IP address "65.128.123.3".

1. Login to Wing FTP Server's Administration.

2. Navigate to "Domains -> Settings -> General Settings -> FTP Pasv Mode".

3. Set the Passive port range (data ports) values between 1024 and 1074.

In fact, you can choose any number between 1024 and 65535, but we recommend that you limit the range to as few data ports as you need. When a user lists a directory or uploads/downloads a file from your server, Wing FTP Server will use one data port. Once the transfer is completed, the data port will go back to the available list for reuse. So if you only expect 10 people to download/upload files at the same time, you can limit your data port range to about 20 or 30 ports. If you expect 100 simultaneous users, then 200-300 ports are recommended.

4. Enter the external IP address of your router in the field "Fixed IP".

If you don't know your External IP address or have a dynamic External IP address, you can get it from an IP address-resolving web page. (such as: "http://ip.wftpserver.com/w/getIP.php").

5. Click on the OK button to save the changes.

Step 2 – Configuring your router

The following steps will configure your router to work with Wing FTP Server. Our test scenario was based on a NETGEAR (Nighthawk R7000) router; other routers may not have the same process. Please refer to the user manual of your router on configuring Port Forwarding.

To continue this step, you need to know the Internal LAN IP address of the Wing FTP Server. In our scenario, we use 192.168.1.123.

1. Launch the configuration program for your router, the configuration page for the demonstration router is web-based.

2. Go to the Advanced Setup->Port Forwarding page, and click "Add Custom Service" button.

3. Forward port 21 to the Wing FTP Server at IP 192.168.1.123.

4. Also, forward the PASV port range (like 1024-1074) to 192.168.1.123. This is necessary so that the server will open a data channel for the client when FTP client issues a PASV mode command to Wing FTP Server.

5. If you have Implicit SSL enabled on your Wing FTP Server, you should also forward port 990 to 192.168.1.123.

6. If you have HTTP protocol enabled on your Wing FTP Server, you should also forward port 80 to 192.168.1.123.

6. Save the configuration, and it will take effect immediately. For some routers, you may need to switch off the power and restart again.