Passive FTP and NAT Configuration Temporary Workaround

Overview

cPanel & WHM’s implementation of PureFTP and ProFTPD causes an issue on NAT-configured networks on cPanel & WHM version 64 and older. This issue prevents Passive FTP connections to other IP addresses on the server, and connections via domains that resolve to other IP addresses.

Warning:
The following workaround is a temporary fix for NAT-configured servers on cPanel & WHM version 64 and older. The next time you reconfigure the FTP server, the system will automatically re-add the ForcePassiveIP or MasqueradeAddress settings to the configuration file.

Workaround

In order to work around this limitation, perform the following steps:

  1. Follow the existing procedure in the How to Enable FTP Passive Mode document to configure Passive FTP on a NAT-configured network.
  2. Remove the ForcePassiveIP setting from the /etc/pure-ftpd.conf file or the MasqueradeAddress settings from the /etc/proftpd.conf file.
  3. Restart your FTP server.

You should be able to connect to all FTP-enabled domains on the server via a Passive FTP session.

Important:
NAT configurations are commonly associated with secure environments. Because of this, we strongly recommend that you use cPanel’s Web Disk feature (cPanel >> Home >> Files >> Web Disk) instead of FTP for file transfers. Unlike FTP, Web Disk encrypts usernames and passwords, and it transfers files over secure connections.