FreeNAS + ddns + ftp = I'm lost

[HellaSancho]

Hey All,

I'm not finding a concise guide or discussion walking through this process so...

I'm VERY new to networking in general and I'm attempting to setup an FTP server to be accessed outside of my local network. I have a general idea of what I need to do to get this done but I'm getting a bit lost in a slew of failed attempts... So here's where I am:

I set up my shared volume on my local network. All's well there. I then set up an ftp server in freenas which works fine via my LAN. I now want to be able to access my ftp server outside of the network through a domain I have obtained from no-ip.

Questions:

How do I go about doing this? What IP address do I give no-ip as a host? What ports do I forward to allow traffic between my FTP server and the outside world? How do I setup freenas to update the host IP no-ip uses to point to my ftp server?

Thanks for any help!

(PS: I'm trying to keep hardware agnostic if possible to increase the usefulness of this discussion)

 

[cyberjock]

This isn't a noob question.. this is an off-topic question. Someone should move the thread.

 

[HellaSancho]

Sorry about that. Is it on me to move the thread or an admin?

 

[cyberjock]

The admins will move it.

 

[praecorloth]

Here's a place to start reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol#NAT_and_firewall_traversal

This section won't hand you the answer, but it should give you all of the terms that you need to successfully start researching your problem. If your run in to more brick walls, you can go here for a wide variety of support, from very general, to fairly specific.

http://arstechnica.com

Their forum is very active, and very friendly assuming you've done some leg work and can give a clear explanation of what you're trying to do. Which it looks like you can. Also,

I have a general idea of what I need to do to get this done but I'm getting a bit lost in a slew of failed attempts.

I don't care how well versed someone is in tech, the ability to understand that you may be compounding your troubles with your various troubleshooting attempts is a fairly rare ability. Hold on to it.

 

[HellaSancho]

Thank you for the kudos and the references. I eventually figured this out and it was simpler than expected. Basically all I had to do was this:

1) Acquire a domain from no-ip.com and provide my public IP to them
2) Choose a device to handle DDNS updates (I chose my NAS)
3) Setup DDNS on freenas by providing your hostname, username, password under "Services/Dynamic DNS"
4) Set a static IP address for my NAS (I use DCHP so I set this to 192.168.1.254 and in my router set the range to .1-.253)
5) Forward port External Starting Port 20 and External Ending Port 21 to your NASs static IP (.254 in my case)

Now one should be able to slap your hostname "blahblah.no-ip.org" along with your freenas FTP username and password into an FTP client like FileZilla and you're good to go.

This all assumes that you have set up your FTP server already - FYI.

Cheers,
-H

 

[Juan Manuel Palacios]

3) Setup DDNS on freenas by providing your hostname, username, password under "Services/Dynamic DNS"

Hi HellaSancho!

Would you mind providing details on how you got DDNS to work on your FreeNAS? I'm running 11.1-U1, and I'm trying to configure it for the changeip.com service, but I just can't get it to work!

My settings are:

Provider: changeip.com
CheckIP Server SSL: unselected
CheckIP Server: ip.changeip.com:80
Use SSL: unselected
Domain name: (my domain name)
Password: (my password)
Update period: 300

But it just doesn't work and entries in the log keep referring to dyndns, and don't seem to be reading the domain name that I enter in the GUI:

Guessing DDNS plugin 'default@dyndns.org' from 'dyndns'
Failed resolving hostname : hostname nor servname provided, or not known
Failed resolving hostname checkip.dyndns.org: hostname nor servname provided, or not known
Failed to get IP address for default@dyndns.org, giving up!
Update forced for alias , new IP#

Any tips? Thanks!