Xubuntu, FTP server and OSMC

[Tim Hall]

I have a box running Xubuntu 14.04.  This is connected via wifi to the rest of the world, including my home network.

I have a raspberry Pi running OSMC and Kodi.  OSMC has an FTP server built in, which makes for a simple (to me) way of transferring files from the Xubuntu box to the Pi.  Click on the Network icon in Thunar (file manager) and select the OSMC option.

Except now the OSMC option isn't present.

Use of Occam's razor suggests it's down to the recent change in router.  I thought I replicated all the relevant settings but this might not be the case.

I can still SSH into the Pi either from the Xubuntu box or from my phone or from my laptop. I can still ping the Pi.

What daft thing have I done?  What other info do the massed brains of YACF need to help me?

(Things not yet tried: Switching back to the old router.  Connecting the Xubuntu box to the network with wires)

[Afasoas]

I doubt changing the router has caused this issue - it shouldn't be doing any LAN to LAN filtering.

SSH into the Pi and try:
$ ps aux | grep -i "ftp"

That should return at least two results, one for the command you just ran and also another for the vsftp process.

[tiermat]

I doubt changing the router has caused this issue - it shouldn't be doing any LAN to LAN filtering.

SSH into the Pi and try:
$ ps aux | grep -i "ftp"

That should return at least two results, one for the command you just ran and also another for the vsftp process.

Unless ftp is running via xinetd(tcp wrappers), in which case it won't be seen, will it?

[Tim Hall]

I'll try that this evening.  Meanwhile, last night I found I could see it if I went to "Go to location" and typed in ftp://192.168.1.2
 

[vorsprung]

ftp is a pit of evil and should be eradicated from the earth

[Mr Larrington]

Yes, let's go back to the good old days of Kermit

[Tim Hall]

ftp is a pit of evil and should be eradicated from the earth

So to do that, what should I be doing?  I vaguely recall trying mounting the disc attached to the Pi on the xubuntu box using strange incantations. Fiddling with fstab on the xubuntu box and doing something other on the pi. Samba perhaps.

EDIT: Further head scratching suggests it was NFS over a crap wifi connection.  I'll give it another go now I've got a new router.

[vorsprung]

Yes, let's go back to the good old days of Kermit

The problem with ftp is that it dates from before Kermit.  The first RFC was 1971.

[Kim]

I have a box running Xubuntu 14.04.  This is connected via wifi to the rest of the world, including my home network.

I have a raspberry Pi running OSMC and Kodi.  OSMC has an FTP server built in, which makes for a simple (to me) way of transferring files from the Xubuntu box to the Pi.  Click on the Network icon in Thunar (file manager) and select the OSMC option.

Except now the OSMC option isn't present.

This sounds like you're describing the file manager failing to see that there's a machine on the network and offer you an icon to click on, in the style of every Windows home network ever (but there's no reason other OSes can't get in on the act).

Which may be unrelated to any kind of problem with the ftp service.  You may be able to connect by FTP if you can point it at the IP address directly.

ETA: Ah, you've just said that you can.  There you go then.  Not an FTP problem, a finding-things-on-the-network problem.  Probably something voodoo to do with broadcast packets and what order things boot up in.  Personally I consider life to be too short for fucking about with this sort of thing and have full-blown DNS on my network.  Alternatively, create a bookmark/shortcut to the ftp://192.168.1.2 URL and go for a bike ride or something.


Anyway, FTP is rubbish.  If it's a Linux box with an ssh server (ie. most of them) you can generally use SFTP out of the box, though the performance for large files isn't necessarily as good).

[Afasoas]

Glossing over the fact that FTP isn't in vogue, it sounds like the FTP server is running but presumably before you were trying to access if via ftp://kodibox.mynetwork, not ftp://192.168.1.2

I'm guessing that your Kodi box is using a dynamic IP (DHCP) and where as your old routery box would kindly upgrade it's DNS records so that you could ask it for kodibox.mynetwork and it would gracefully answer 192.168.1.2, your new routerybox for some reason just says no*.

There are two ways of dealing with this.

1) Is to coerce the routerybox into handing DHCP and Dynamic DNS properly - how to do this depends on your routery box
2) Is just to add an entry into the hosts files on your compopbulater (Kubuntu box) - you need to edit the '/etc/hosts' file (using sudo) and add the line "192.168.1.2      kodibox.mynetwork".

That latter of course is just hacking around the problem. You will no doubt forget about that hack at some point and then wonder why it doesn't work again at some point in future when the operating system has been re-installed or the compobulatator replaced completely.

*I'm wondering if it's possible that Netbios was being used before ... it's really a Windows thing but if everything is running Samba then maybe some more digging is required. In anycase, Netbios is old hat and almost as terrible as FTP

[Tim Hall]

OK, some progress. Yes, Afasoas, I was sort of accessing it via kodibox.mynetwork

The old (plusnet) router was buttoned down fairly tightly.  I couldn't even see a way of fiddling with DHCP settings.  To (try) to keep things simple, I delved into the settings on the kodibox and set a fixed IP there (192.168.1.2).  The Plusnet routed managed to deal with this quite happily.

The new router (Zoom DSL) hasa lot more buttons I can tweak, including fiddling with DHCP.  When I first set it up, last week, it seemed to ignore the fixed IP I'd set on the kodibox, and gave the address (192.168.1.2) to the first device it was (my phone). I coudn't see a way of purging the DHCP leases, so fiddled with the dynamic range on the router, starting it at 192.168.1.3. This sort of works, except for the problem in this thread.

I just tried swapping back to the old Plusnet router. The kodibox shows up in the file explorer window just like it used to.

It's a problem with IP addresses and DNS I think.

[Afasoas]

A ha. That xplaineth the problem. The new router simply doesn't know about Kodibox. Put it back on dynamic IP address so Kodibox asks the router for its IP address. The router should give you the option of turning the kodibox's DHCP lease into a DHCP reservation which will guarantee the router gives it (and no other devices) that IP address.

[Kim]

Static DHCP allocations are always a good idea, but that doesn't imply that the router will create DNS entries for hosts on the LAN  (Perhaps that feature's become more common since I last dealt with such things?).  Definitely the next thing to try, though.