FTP Help

[mssmith]

We have Alfresco installed on a Mountain Lion server. We also have a Windows 2008 server with an HP OCR software. We want to scan documents on a scanner using this OCR software and send it to Alfresco through its' FTP service. Problem is that you cannot specify a port using the OCR software for FTP. Mac uses port 21 and Alfresco is set up using port 2121. I have tried changing the default port for Mac to another port and change Alfresco to use port 21 but that doesn't seem to help. I can use some third party FTP stand alone clients that can access the Alfresco FTP share just fine. Anyone understand what I am trying to do that can help?

[simon_white]

Quick disclaimer:  My actual production experience on this in in other *nixes rather than OSX, but a quick google indicates this should all apply.

The reason Alfresco uses port 2121 is that only the root user is allowed to open ports 1-1024 and we almost never want to run Alfresco as the root user.

The usual trick, therefore, is to configure your server to redirect/translate traffic that would otherwise hit port 21 to hit port 2121.  On Linux you'd do something like (See <a href='http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/File_Server_Configuration'>the wiki</a>):

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp –dport 21-j REDIRECT –to-ports 2121 ‍

On OSX, <a href='http://serverfault.com/questions/183542/how-to-permanently-redirect-port-80-to-8080-on-os-x'>this serverfault post</a> gives instructions for forwarding - just change port 80 to 21 and 8080 to 2121 and you should be good to go!

Hope this helps,

Simon