FTP and Port Forwarding

Hi, I know how to allow an FTP program through my Norton Firewall but do I have to forward port(s) ( I believe the default is 21?) like I did with certain other Bit Torrent sites?
Thanks,Bill (off to try this tomorrow)

Setting your FTP client to use passive mode is usually all you need to do.

Symantec products are rarther too buggy for my liking. It's been a long time since I last used Norton internet security.

Port forwarding is for incoming connections. When you connect to an FTP server to log in you make an outgoing connection to port 21.

File Transfer Protocol was created decades ago before firewalls and connection sharing devices like NAT routers broke end to end connectivity.

FTP uses port 21 for the messages and opens seperate connections for the data when transfering files.
In the past your FTP client started listening on a port number and the server connected to that port to transfer data. Almost all ftp servers now support passive mode where the client connects to the server.

You mention of port forwarding for bittorrent suggests you have a NAT router. Some of the early NAT routers such as zyxel brand were clever enough to automatically forward ftp data connections but that does not seem to be a common feature anymore.

To get non-passive ftp to work you first need to configure your client to use a fixed port number for ftp data connections. Not all clients support that. Then you set up port forwarding for that port.

here is a great site to go to so you can set up port forwarding for any router.
http://portforward.com/