Using NAT and FTP without a Proxy

Firewalls running pfSense® software do not include an FTP Proxy, but this does not affect clients and servers as much as one might think.

Important

Use of FTP is strongly discouraged. It is an outdated protocol that transmits credentials and other data openly without encryption which is very insecure.

Client Behind pfSense Software

FTPS, or encrypted FTP, is not affected. The proxy could not have affected its traffic before.

A client on a LAN or other internal interface behind pfSense software will likely not notice any difference. Most clients, aside from the Microsoft command line FTP program, default to passive (PASV) FTP, where clients make outbound connections to servers.

Passive mode on the client will require access to random/high ports outbound, which could run afoul of a strict outbound ruleset. Environments with a security policy that requires strict outbound firewall rules likely would not be using FTP anyhow, as it transmits credentials without encryption.

Active mode FTP through NAT will not function as that relies on a proxy or similar mechanism. Use Passive mode instead. Another option is the recently added FTP Client Proxy package which leverages in FreeBSD to allow clients on local interfaces to reach remote FTP servers with active FTP.

Active mode FTP for a client that does not involve NAT (Client has a public IP address) should work so long as WAN rules pass the appropriate traffic back to the client. The client may have a configurable active port range to make that simpler.

Server Behind pfSense Software

FTPS, or encrypted FTP, is not affected. The proxy could not have affected its traffic before.

A server behind pfSense software would work fine with active mode, there would be no difference here. In active mode the server would make outbound connections back to the client, so as long as the firewall rules on the interface containing the server allow outbound connections, it will work.

A server behind pfSense software running in Passive mode will function but requires a few items to be configured:

  • Port forwards or 1:1 NAT to forward not only port 21, but also the passive port range in to the server

  • The passive port range must be configured on the server, corresponding to the range of ports forwarded in the previous step.

  • The server may also need to be configured to account for NAT. Some clients will ignore private addresses in passive responses so this may not be necessary.

Sample Configuration for vsftpd

In vsftpd.conf:

# Do not allow the client to use PORT
port_enable=NO
# Use the hostname in the PASV response (DNS must be setup and match!)
pasv_addr_resolve=YES
# Enable Passive Mode
pasv_enable=YES
# Set the passive port range (1000 ports)
pasv_min_port=20000
pasv_max_port=20999