Hosting FTP Server on Router

Introduction

I would like to set up an FTP server at home so that I can transfer media files between my Sony camera and desktop computer via FTP quickly. It turns out that my old Netgear router C7000v2 already has a built-in FTP server feature. I can use the USB port on the router to connect a USB storage device and set up an FTP server on the router.

In this blog post, I would like to quickly show how to set up an FTP server on a Netgear router, how to access the FTP server from a client, and my user experience.

Hosting FTP Server on Router

Router Administrator Login

We have to login to the router control panel, which is usually located at 192.168.0.1, with administrator username admin and password.

USB Storage Setup

To set up the USB storage, we need to connect a USB storage device to the USB port on the router. The router will automatically detect the USB storage device and mount it.

FTP Server Setup

To enable the FTP server, we need to go to the Advanced Settings under the USB Storage section to turn on the FTP access method. I did not enable the FTP (via internet) access method since it is not useful for me.

FTP Media Server Setup

Optionally, we could also enable the Media Server under the USB Storage section. However, probably because my Netgear router is old, the media server is not equipped with advanced streaming service software, such as Plex. So this feature is not quite useful for me.

FTP Server Access

If we would like to not only download but also upload files to the FTP server, we could use an FTP client. For example, we could use FileZilla to access the FTP server.

The hostname is ftp://readyshare.routerlogin.net/shares. The username and password for FTP server access should remain blank since we did not have username and password for it. The default FTP port is 21 and we can also leave it blank.

Note that after entering the hostname, the hostname will become ftp://readyshare.routerlogin.net. If we want to access the FTP server using ftp://readyshare.routerlogin.net, we will encounter an error Failed to retrieve directory listing.

We could also manage the FTP login settings in the Site Manager of FileZilla. The Host should be readyshare.routerlogin.net, the Port should be 21, and the Protocol should be FTP - File Transfer Protocol. The Encryption should be set to Use explicit FTP over TLS if available. The Logon Type should be set to Anonymous. In the Advanced tab, we can set the Default local directory to the local directory we want to use for FTP file transfer. The Default remote directory should be set to /shares.

If we would only like to download files from the FTP server, we could also just use a web browser to access the FTP server. The URL should be http://readyshare.routerlogin.net/shares.

Media Server Access

To access the media server, we could use the media player VLC. The media server files are accessible by clicking View -> Playlist -> Local Network -> Universal Plug'n'Play. The media server files will show up in the playlist.

User Experience

My user experience with the FTP server on the Netgear router is quite bad. There are a few key drawbacks which prevent me from using it as a reliable FTP server.

1. I feel the FTP server hibernates when it is not in use. When I try to access the FTP server after a while, it will produce errors a few times before it can successfully connect.
2. The FTP server account cannot be managed. The username and password cannot be configured. What’s worse, if I enable the Admin Password Protection once and later disable it, the FTP server will still require the admin username and password to access.
3. The HTTP access to the FTP server does not work most of the time after it was enabled.
4. Many other less advanced FTP clients could not access the FTP server. I tried FTPManager on iPhone to access the FTP server, no matter how I configured the settings, the connection could not be successfully established. I also tried the Sony camera FTP client accessing the FTP server, but I could not make it work either.

Conclusions

In conclusion, the FTP server on the Netgear router, at least on the old C7000v2 model, is not a reliable solution for hosting an FTP server at home. It is not user-friendly and has many limitations. I would rather host a FTP server on a Raspberry Pi or a Jetson Xavier, which is more reliable.

When it comes to transferring hundreds of gigabytes of media files from camera, it is theoretically still too slow and energy-inefficient to use FTP. The fastest and the most reliable way is to take out the SD card or the CFexpress card from the camera and transfer the files from the card to the computer using a card reader.

References

• How Do I Set Up My Personal FTP Server On My Nighthawk Router?
• How Do I Set Up FTP Access Through The Internet So I Can Access The USB Drive Attached To My Nighthawk Router?
• Importing Images Using FTP - Sony