---
title: "Correcting your passive port range for cPanel for FTP"
slug: "correcting-passive-port-range-for-cpanel-ftp"
updated: 2026-07-08T01:37:30Z
published: 2026-07-08T01:37:30Z
canonical: "docs.serversaustralia.com.au/correcting-passive-port-range-for-cpanel-ftp"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.serversaustralia.com.au/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Correcting your passive port range for cPanel for FTP

On cPanel systems, sometimes the firewall and pure-ftpd / proftpd service can be at odds.

This causes connections using passive-transfer mode to fail after initially connecting. The reason for this is that the FTP client will connect, but the server will respond back to use a port number that is blocked by the firewall configuration.

[](https://documentation.cpanel.net%C2%A0)

To correct this, you'll need to modify the configuration file for the FTP service.

## For Pure-FTP:

1. Log in by SSH as root 2. Remove the cache configuration file

```shell
rm -f /var/cpanel/conf/pureftpd/main.cache
```

3. Edit the main configuration file

```shell
nano /var/cpanel/conf/pureftpd/main
```

4. Set the PassivePortRange range with the start and end of allowed ports

```shell
PassivePortRange 30000 35000
```

5. Regenerate the running configuration

```shell
/scripts/setupftpserver --force pure-ftpd
```

## For Pro-FTP:

1. Log in by SSH as root 2. Remove the cache configuration file

```shell
rm -f /var/cpanel/conf/proftpd/main.cache
```

3. Edit the main configuration file

```shell
nano /var/cpanel/conf/proftpd/main
```

4. Set the Passive Ports range with the start and end of allowed ports

```shell
PassivePorts 30000 35000
```

5. Regenerate the running configuration

```shell
/scripts/setupftpserver --force proftpd
```

Now FTP transfers can use passive-transfer mode without problems.