text: what ports does ftp traffic travel over?   ftp is commonly run on two ports, 20 and 21, and runs exclusively over tcp. the ftp server listens on port 21 for incoming connection from ftp clients. a connection on this port forms the control stream, on which commands are passed to the ftp server. for the actual file transfer to take place, a different connection is required. depending on the transfer mode, the client (active mode) or the server (passive mode) can listen for the incoming data connection. before file transfer begins, the client and server also negotiate the port of the data connection. in case of active connections (where the server connects to the client to transfer data), the server binds on port 20 before connecting to the client. for passive connections, there is no such restriction.