FTP not working in passive mode – proftpd, iptables and ISPconfig

If you are using proftpd FTP server together with iptables firewall, which is the case if you for example are using ISPconfig, you will probably have problems using FTP against your server in passive mode. The problem is that the iptables firewall will not allow the incoming connections in passive mode.

The solution is to configure proftpd to use a small, defined range of incoming ports and open iptables for this range.

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Linksys WRT54GL and inbound VPN (PPTP) forwarding

Before you read this entire post – this was posted after I just installed the router and configured it for VPN (PPTP) pass through.  A week or so later, when I was abroad and needed my VPN the most (of course), it had stopped working. To make a long story short – my router is now running the Tomato firmware. So unless you like banging your head in a buggy firmware from Linksys, read my post about installing Tomato instead.



Scenario: You are using a Linksys WRT54GL broadband router to connect your LAN to the Internet. On your Internal LAN you have a computer that can handle inbound VPN connections (PPTP). This can be a Windows XP or Windows Server of some kind.

To make this work you must configure your broadband router to forward the inbound VPN (PPTP) connections to your PC. This is normally simple but some people (including me) ran into some problems trying to do this on a Linksys WRT54GL router.

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Homemade steam rocket on ice

How to have some fun with technology!

Joomla! templates looking strange in MSIE8

Some Joomla! templates looks nice in all browsers except Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8). One easy solution is to add the following line to the <head> section of the index.php for the template in question: <head>

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7"/>

Be careful to check that your site works as expected after applying this solution.