Active FTP client blocked by Windows Firewall on Windows 7

Question

I have an application that runs as a service and contains an FTP client. It needs to connect to an FTP server that only supports Active FTP. When I attempt to get a list of files or download a file, Windows Firewall is dropping the incoming connection from the FTP server. (I don't believe we had this problem in Windows XP or Windows Vista.)

Active FTP is the protocol that requires the the server to open a connection to the client on a port that the client specified. (http://slacksite.com/other/ftp.html)

I know I could open up a large port range in Windows Firewall and force my FTP client to only use those ports, but I would have guessed that Windows Firewall would support Active FTP natively.

Is there some setting that needs to be made in order to have Windows Firewall automatically detect Active FTP and open up the necessary ports as needed? Can I change that setting programmatically?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Windows XP/Vista/7 all use the 'Application Layer Gateway Service' as a connection helper for Active FTP. You need to ensure that this service is started for Active FTP to work.

To start it:

1. Click the Windows Start button
2. Type 'services.msc' into the search bar and press Enter (the Windows Services panel will pop up)
3. Scroll down until you find the 'Application Layer Gateway Service'
4. Look at the 'Status' column, it should say 'Started'.
5. If not started, double click the service name to get into its options panel.
6. Change the 'Statup Type' drop down to say 'Automatic'
7. Click on the button that says 'Start'
8. Click on 'Apply'
9. Click 'OK'

Answer 2

Eli,

We are having exactly the same problem with our Active FTP Server!

Is this something that you managed to solve? Any help/pointers would be much appreciated.

Thanks Ian