How do I set up FileZilla to send “EPSV” commands instead of “PASV”?

Question

A log from FileZilla

Status: Connecting to ……:21...
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response:   220 ……
Command:    AUTH TLS
Response:   530 Please login with USER and PASS.
Command:    AUTH SSL
Response:   530 Please login with USER and PASS.
Status: Insecure server, it does not support FTP over TLS.
Command:    USER ……
Response:   331 Please specify the password.
Command:    PASS ……
Response:   230 Login successful.
Command:    OPTS UTF8 ON
Response:   200 Always in UTF8 mode.
Status: Logged in
Trace:  Measured latency of 107 ms
Status: Retrieving directory listing...
Command:    PWD
Response:   257 "/home/……" is the current directory
Command:    TYPE I
Response:   200 Switching to Binary mode.
Command:    PASV
Response:   227 Entering Passive Mode (0,0,0,0,128,183).
Status: Server sent passive reply with unroutable address. Using server address instead.
Trace:    Reply: 0.0.0.0, peer: ……
Trace:  Binding data connection source IP to control connection source IP 192.168.0.6
Command:    LIST
Response:   150 Here comes the directory listing.
Response:   226 Directory send OK.
Status: Directory listing of "/home/……" successful

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I’m running an FTP server with vsftpd and set my listen_ipv6 to YES. The server returns 0.0.0.0 in response to a PASV command from the client because of that.

I know FileZilla, the FTP client I’m using, is smart enough; it works anyway. But I really don’t want it to log Server sent passive reply with unroutable address. every single time traversing the file tree.

How do I get it to send EPSV commands instead of PASV?

Answer 1

You cannot configure FileZilla to use EPSV.

FileZilla uses EPSV automatically only in these scenarios:

• Your local machine uses IPv6 only – for IPv6, EPSV is mandatory;
• You are connecting over a proxy and the FTP server supports EPSV – just in case the proxy uses IPv6 to connect to the FTP server.

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But I really don’t want it to log Server sent passive reply with unroutable address. every single time traversing the file tree.

There's no point trying to work this around on the local side. It's server's (or network) problem to respond with an invalid IP address to PASV, not client's problem. But as you know, FileZilla (as well as many other FTP clients) can workaround that. So it's ok to ignore it, as long as you know that all your users use an FTP client that can workaround it.