FTP Crashes VirtualBox Using Passive Mode

[TalisqarSkye]

Hi,

I have an unusual setup in that I use OS X 10.9 and Cumulus in Virtualbox.

This has worked fine for over a year, however, recently I changed my hosting company and therefore my FTP host. The ftp address is the same, just hosted somewhere else. Now, Cumulus keeps crashing and when it does, it crashes the whole virtual Windows 7 machine.
With a bit of playing with settings I noticed that it only crashes when using Passive Mode FTP. I change it to use Active Mode and it doesn't crash, however there is an error with the FTP upload in Active Mode.

Cumulus Version 1.9.4 Build 1089

The error in the FTP log is FTP Response: 500 Illegal PORT command

Any help is appreciated.

[steve]

Google suggests that "500 illegal PORT command" is an issue with Firewall NAT translation, e.g. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/281193. Possibly a bug in VirtualBox, as that will be doing NAT translation.

I imagine that crash you're having with Passive mode is in VirtualBox rather than Cumulus (as a crash in the Cumulus code wouldn't crash Windows). Similar to the problem described here, for example: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10527

[TalisqarSkye]

Thank you Steve, I'll take a look at those links.

[TalisqarSkye]

Hi Steve, although that VirtualBox bug says it's fixed, it doesn't appear to be. I changed VirtualBox from using NAT Network to a Bridge Network and it appears to be ok now. Many thanks for the link.

As the bug says, it is only certain hosts that have this problem but I'm happy now that it is working.

If anyone else switches from Windows to Apple Mac then I thoroughly recommend VirtualBox. It works great with Cumulus. Also, by mapping a directory you can store the weather history on the Mac and not in the VirtualBox VM. Easy to backup then.