I have a need for an old-fashioned FTP with no security on it. The files that I upload will already be encrypted. Even a decrypted file would be useless to just about anyone who might obtain one. Is this service offered?

I want to qualify what I posted earlier. I want to be able to manage the files with a secure link but I want to be able to create an account that can only read files and is not allowed to upload or modify the files in the account. The user access to this account would have no security on the FTP port but the management account (my account) will have security on it. What I don't want is for a user who downloads a file to have the file under his control. The files will only be downloaded via some automated software.

The only security on the user account is UserName/Password.

If I understand correctly, you want a plain FTP service with 2 user accounts, one is the admin user, the other one is the guest user. The admin user will have full access to your files using the plain FTP protocol; ther guest user can download files, but cannot modify or delete files. This is a very basic feature of our FTP / cloud IT service.

You just need to sign up an account on DriveHQ (which you have done so), you can then access our FTP hosting service at ftp.drivehq.com. To create a sub-account, please make sure you use our Group Account service. From the DriveHQ start menu, click on Group Account to access our group account features. You can create / manage sub-accounts from there.

Now you just need to create a folder in your main account. When you log on as your Group Admin account, you will have full access to all files in your account.  

You can then share the folder with your sub-user and set it with read-only access. Your sub-user can log on with the sub-username and password, he will be able to access the shared folder from the special location:

\DriveHQShare\YOUR_USERNAME\SHARE_NAME

If the folder is shared with read-only permission, then the sub-user cannot make any changes to it. Please let us know if this answers your questions.

I think this answers my question. I basically want no SSL on the FTP port. It is too much to ask at this stage.

 I see. Plain FTP is considered insecure nowadays. DriveHQ supports FTP over SSL. However, plain FTP is still supported. 

I am able to connect to ftp.drivehq.com port 21 with an FTP connect and get the message:

220 Welcome to the most popular FTP hosting service! Save on hardware, software, hosting and admin. Share files/folders with read-write permission. Visit http://www.drivehq.com/ftp/;

However, I then send it the NAME command and there is no reply. Sending it the PASS command also results in no reply.

Connecting with FileZilla results in a TLS connection. It looks like there is security on the FTP port and I can't reach it with plain old FTP. Perhaps FileZilla is offering TLS as a connection option and your server is choosing it. But your server is not responding to any standard FPT commands except the initial connect. Could it be that standard FTP is on a different port?

Usually we recommend the group account soultion in this case. If this is not what you want, my recommendation is to conact support@drivehq.com for more detailed information and solutions. 

I was using what I believed your group account to be. At the main page I selected "GROUP ACCOUNT" from my user name dropdown at the top of the page. I created a subaccount. After successfully connecting, I send the user name with the FTP USER command and got no reply.

Plain FTP should be very straight-forward. If it does not work, usually it means your firewall / router has blocked FTP. In this case, please use FileZilla to test it from multiple locations. 

By default, the current version of FileZilla uses FTP over SSL. To use FileZilla with plain FTP, you need to click on the File menu and select Site Manager. In the Site Manager screen, click New Site to add a new FTP site. See the screenshot below:

Enter the server name: ftp.drivehq.com, or if you have a paid account, you can also use proftp.drivehq.com. By default, it uses FTP over SSL. If you want plain FTP, please change Encryption to "Plain FTP" as shown above.

Click Ok to save the site; click Connect to connect to our FTP server.

------------------------

FileZilla can produce very detailed FTP log. To turn on detailed log, please see the screenshot below:

-----------------------

To see the FTP commands sent by FileZilla and the responses received from the FTP server, now you just need to connect to the FTP site. Click the File Menu in FileZilla and select Site Manager. Then select the DriveHQ FTP site and click Connect. You will see the detailed FTP log as shown in the following screen:

If my firewall were blocking the FTP port then I would not have been able to connect successfully. I have tested using FileZilla and it connects successfully with TLS security. So the my firewall is not blocking FTP.

I followed your directions and I obtained the results I was looking for using FileZilla. Your directions have been very informative and I appreciate the help. But for some reason, I am only getting the welcome message and not the other messages that the detailed log shows when using my software. But this milestone should get me on the right track. You have been a lot of help. I will study my code and will, hopefully, see the error of my ways.

Cheers...

I have tried talking to your FTP server once more with my socket program and
I successfully connect and get a response. However, your FTP socket does not
responde to any commands. Here is the saved text from that attempt to login
to your FTP port 21:

Host IP Address=66.220.9.50
Socket Opened=372
Response: 220 Welcome to the most popular FTP hosting service! Save on hardware, software, hosting and admin. Share files/folders with read-write permission. Visit http://www.drivehq.com/ftp/;
Command: USER lJzpGw3vWfwT
Response:
Command: PASS ************
Response:
Socket Closed

I tried the same thing with my web host and their FTP port does respond to
the commands I send to it. So I have to conclude that my program is working
properly. Here is the saved text from that attempt to login to their FTP port 21:

Host IP Address=104.153.45.230
Socket Opened=372
Response: 220---------- Welcome to Pure-FTPd [privsep] [TLS] ----------
220-You are user number 5 of 50 allowed.
220-Local time is now 13:14. Server port: 21.
220 You will be disconnected after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Command: USER lJzpGw3vWfwT
Response: 331 User lJzpGw3vWfwT OK. Password required
220-You are user number 5 of 50 allowed.
220-Local time is now 13:14. Server port: 21.
220 You will be disconnected after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Command: PASS ************
Response: 530 Login authentication failed
220-You are user number 5 of 50 allowed.
220-Local time is now 13:14. Server port: 21.
220 You will be disconnected after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Socket Closed

I don't understand what is going on here because FileZilla does record
reponses when I connect to the same port. Perhaps there is some communication
that happens that FileZilla is omitting from the transaction. Here is the
saved text from the FileZilla communications to your FTP port 21:

Status: Resolving address of ftp.drivehq.com
Status: Connecting to 66.220.9.50:21...
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response:       220 Welcome to the most popular FTP hosting service! Save on hardware, software, hosting and admin. Share files/folders with read-write permission. Visit http://www.drivehq.com/ftp/;
Command:        USER lJzpGw3vWfwT
Response:       331 User name ok, need password.
Command:        PASS ************
Response:       230 User lJzpGw3vWfwT logged on. Free service has restrictions and is slower.
Command:        OPTS UTF8 ON
Response:       200 Enable UTF8 mode.
Status: Logged in
Status: Retrieving directory listing...
Command:        PWD
Response:       257 "/" is current directory.
Status: Directory listing of "/" successful
Status: Disconnected from server
 

Have you also tried with the command-line FTP? If not, please do so and send a screenshot.

Could you please tell us how you produced the FTP log below? (What software did you use?)

If FileZilla and the command-line FTP work fine, but not your program, (also considering our FTP service has been around for over a decade), I believe it is caused by a bug in your code. There are many free FTP client codes and libraries you can use instead of directly programming Sockets.

Looking at your FTP log:

-----------------------------------------

Host IP Address=66.220.9.50
Socket Opened=372
Response: 220 Welcome to the most popular FTP hosting service! Save on hardware, software, hosting and admin. Share files/folders with read-write permission. Visit http://www.drivehq.com/ftp/;
Command: USER lJzpGw3vWfwT
Response: 
Command: PASS ************
Response: 
Socket Closed

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can see that your program did not even receive the first response (to the USER command). This could be caused by:

(1) Your account was blocked. But if you can connect via FileZilla, then your account is (was) not blocked. FYI, free accounts are limited to log on 25 times per day.  Anyway, you might want to try with a different account. (You can test with your Group main account), or you can order our monthly service.

(2) Your program did not send the correct command, e.g. it did not flush the data after sending USER lJzpGw3vWfwT, in this case, our server did not receive your command at all; or it did not end with <CRLF> (e.g. did you only use <CR> or <LF> ? )

If this is for an enterprise account (project), please call our support line. We will have a senior engineer to help you, even though it is not a DriveHQ FTP server issue.

The command line FTP does not explicitly show the messages that are being passed between the two systems. Because of this it is not of much use in diagnosing this problem. When I open a connection it prompts me for a user name which is not something that the FTP server is doing.

As you pointed out, I am not getting a response to the USER command from your FTP server. Looking at the trace I got from running the SAME program against one of my web host provider's ftp servers, you can see that the USER command is being responded to by their server under the very same circumstances. You asked what software I used to obtain the trace and I told you that it is the program I am developing. To get the trace I used the command line to capture all of the output from the program using this form of command:

ftp >capture.txt

You also suggested that the output may not have been flushed and I know that it was because I am not building a buffer that needs to be flushed. I am explicitly sending the command line out with this statement:

/* Send Data */
int ftp_Snd(FTP_PORT *p,char *Msg)
 {
  int St,Len;
 

  //Send a Command
  Len = strlen(Msg);
  St = send(p->CmdSoc,Msg,Len,0);
...

        St = ftp_Snd(&P0,"USER lJzpGw3vWfwT\n");