Overall very happy with their service, would (and do) recommend them to anyone!

Need some quick help with two minor FTP issues:

1) Takes about 20 seconds to log on. Any other FTP site I visit takes about 2 seconds max!

2) Session times out pretty fast. If I go do something else for a minute and come back and try to upload/download, it's timed out and I have to log in again.

Any way to resolve these minor issues?

Check the config of your ftp daemon... there should be a setting allowing you to change the length of the session timeout.

Is it your own dedicated? I guess your FTP program is still doing reverse lookups etc - which is why it's taking longer to login.

Matt

Yes - this is when I connect to my dedicated box.

You just need to tweak your FTP program, so it doesn't do reverse lookups and doesn't time out so quickly. Find out what program you are using and people here might be able to help out more. :)

I'm currently using WS_FTP LE v. 5.08

You need to check which ftp daemon your using on your server.

in WebHost Manager it says "ProFTPd" for the FTP service.

Edit your /etc/proftpd.conf file and add the following lines:

UseReverseDNS off
IdentLookups off

That should speed things up.

Richard

I'm a bit green at this - am I doing any harm by turning those off?

Originally posted by RandyL712
I'm a bit green at this - am I doing any harm by turning those off?

No, it's no big deal. :)

No, there's no harm in turning these off. Reverse DNS takes an IP address and tries to determine the host name. A lot of times the IP address will not have a reverse DNS entry and when it does the information returned it not that useful since the information may point to a higher up service provider and not the actual user of the IP. The Ident protocol attempts to query the connecting computer for it's host name, but most firewalls block the Ident protocol and routers using NAT will usually just drop it. Again, the information that is actually returned from Ident is generally not very useful.

Richard

(about to show how new I am to this, please don't bite)

I'm used to FTP-ing in, downloading a config file, editing it in notepad, and uploading it back to the server. Well, this server doesn't have a root FTP so I must log in SSH shell using putty. I'm decent at getting around in the UNIX atmosphere - are there any built-in text editors I could use to quickly edit this file?

Try

pico /etc/proftpd.conf

The pico editor is pretty straight forward. If pico isn't installed you may have to use vi. It's commands are a bit more cryptic. Do a man vi to get instructions on using the vi editor.


Before you make any changes make a backup copy of your file just in case :)

cp /etc/proftpd.conf /etc/proftpd.conf.bak



Richard

BTW: Thanks for all the great help!

The pico session went fine - I added the lines at the end of the file, hope that's okay?

Well, I restarted ProFTPD but logins are still taking 10-20 seconds :(

That usually will take care of the delay in logging in. If you'd like I can take a look at if for you. You can PM me or contact me on AIM: Noldar2002.

Richard

Thanks - I've emailed FastServers.net about this. This isn't right

If you don't mind post or PM me with the fix if you find one. I have a server with them also and the same thing happens to me. It doesn't really bother me, but a little extra speed never hurts.

They've written back that it's not a FastServer problem but with my ISP.... the odd things:

1) I can access any other FTP service (i.e. other servers) with amazing speed, less than a second to login.

2) Once I'm logged in, speed is fine.

3) Logging in from my house, it's a much faster login.

Anyone have any ideas?

Just had a thought...in your proftpd.conf file what does it have on the line that says 'ServerType'?

Richard

standalone

standalone
Ok, well that's not the problem then. Thought maybe it might be running from inetd.

You did say you restarted proftp after you made the change to the proftpd.conf?

# /etc/rc.d/init.d/proftpd restart

Richard

I clicked RESTART FTP (ProFTPD) from the WebHost Manager

(the command you provided just said "Hangup". I stopped, then started with your command tho)

Problem persists.

Where are you logging in from that you are seeing the delay? Is there a firewall or a router running NAT?

You could also try posting your proftpd.con file and see if someone might be able to spot a problem.

To answer your second question (which I overlooked) you can add the following line to change the timeout:

TimeoutIdle 900

The timeout is in seconds. That would set the timeout to 15 minutes.

Richard

I'm on DSL with a simple hub connecting 5 PCs to the DSL modem. The issue isn't seen on any other server. It seems like it must somehow be connected with either FastServers.net or my dedicated server.

Well, if you could set up a test ftp account, I'd be willing to login and test out the speed. Cable on West Coast here.

I PMed you the login info, give it a try!

Hi,

Please keep us posted of your findings. I also have been having a delay of up to thirty seconds to log on through FTP. Once connected it works fine.

Originally posted by RandyL712
I PMed you the login info, give it a try!

I got a login failure. Please check that the account you sent me works.

BTW, I tried pinging your domain, and it always reports back unreachable at the last hop (destination) after the 1st ping. Not sure why...

pings always return false - some sort of security thing to block attacks.

sorry, I deleted the account because \/

Okay, this is getting weird. It's ONLY taking 20+ seconds on my other IP addresses. The Main 'shared' IP always loads instantly (including the test account I made for you)

So, it's GOT to be a problem with the server...

Did you setup any IPtables or IPchains firewall?
Any IDS?
Any Portscan detectors?

It's not a problem with FastServers but the configuration of your software environment.

Make sure that the directives that you added are not within a context block like a <virtualhost></virtualhost> block. I usually put mine up at the top right after ServerName, ServerType, and DefaultServer.

Richard

Also, try turning on/off 'Passive FTP' within your FTP client.

I found i had to kill the ftp daemon and then start it backup for the changes to take place, simply restarting it didn't work.

Try ps aux | grep proftpd

then kill the processes and click restart in whm.

On sites with static IPs i have found there is a login delay too. I'm not sure if you have to add the reverselookups off for each ip in the config file.

An update: FastServers has graciously been helping me with this as well, and thinks that the solution is to get hostnames for your additional IPs.

Well, here's what fastservers did - but it didn't change anything. Still takes 20 seconds to login. Takes half a second to my main IP.What I think is happening here is that your local ISP (or perhaps proftpd on your server), is slowing down the FTP handshake as there aren't any reverse dns hostnames specified for your supplemental IP addresses on your server.
...
The next step to solve this would be to get hostnames for your additional IPs so we can get them into reverse propagation and hopefully move closer to a solution here.
[which they did for me immediately]Any other ideas guys?

bump!

If you'd like to set up an FTP and SSH account for me I'll take a look and see if I can find anything. You can PM me or contact me on AIM: Noldar2002.

Richard

It only seems to happen when I connect from my office's DSL (Qwest). At home, I connect instantly.

This has to be a simple fix... I'm so confused.

bump :(

Does your office have a firewall or anything like that which could be interfering?

We use Norton Personal Firewall, yes. No hardware firewall.

If your firewall is disabled.. do you have the same problem?

ding ding ding! That's the problem. Now - any idea how to fix it?

Does your firewall do any kind of logging? If so, what kind of activity are you seeing when you try to initiate an FTP session?

Richard

pico -w :D <-- cuzz i hate emacs

Looks like Firewall was blocking an incoming TCP transmission from the IP address which slowed it down. I created a rule allowing the IP address in question, and now I login immediately! Thanks!

Was it TCP port 113? If so, that's an IDENT query.

Richard

so randy... what all did you do (in step order) before you disabled your firewall. We have fabulous speeds, however have this login issue as well on our servers.. curious to know

Do you have a firewall

Yes, I personally do, however, even with it disabled, its just the same. :) I've even tested from a data center and it's the same as well... need some input. :)

Best things is, my clients LOVE the speed, and if I can surprise them with faster logins, I would be grateful. :-)

If you are using proftpd then try putting in those lines in this thread in the proftpd.conf file, kill the daemons and restart, and logins could be faster.