Kagi Frequently Asked Question

Question:

530 User anonymous access denied.

Answer:

There are two reasons why you might not be able to download a file from some other site via FTP, they might not allow anonymous FTP access or they allow it only when your machine is known to a domain name server.

If the FTP site does not allow anonymous access that means that the only way you'll download from that site is if you have been given a username and password for that server by the owner of that server.

If the site normally allows anonymous access but not for you here is probably the reason why. FTP servers expect you to log in with the username of anonymous and the password equal to your email address. Many FTP servers will look at your IP address and ask their domain name server to determine if there is a machine listed in a domain name server somewhere that has that IP address. This lookup is called an inverse DNS query. If the IP address does not have an entry in someone's domain name server, the FTP server assumes that you might be using a bogus address and just to be on the safe side they will not allow you to access their files.

To fix this situation, you need to talk to your local network guru and tell them that you need your machine listed in the DNS so that the DNS will reply to an inverse DNS query (what machine name goes with this IP address?).

When you dial into a network, for many people, the PPP or SLIP server assigns you a new IP address each time. The way to handle this situation is for the network guru to create a name for each IP address that the remote access server can assign. The names typically are very imaginative such as computer1, Computer2, etc. :-) But as long as there is a name, the anonymous FTP sites will let you log in.

Modification Date: Friday, October 13, 1995