Question : Accessing FTP server via external IP only?!

I've been asked to create an FTP site for someone here. I've created it in IIS; port 21 has been assigned. The router is forwarding port 21 to the correct server.

However, the one only thing is that I want this FTP site to be accessed via an external IP address and not a subdomain. I don't know why they don't want to add any MX records or A records etc for the domain to point to ftp.domain.com, so I have to resort to external IP only.

Is it possible to do something like ftp://external_ip in the browser? My issue is that I've tried and it isn't working.

Thanks for the help peeps.

Answer : Accessing FTP server via external IP only?!

first, from your ftp server, go to www.cmyip.com

verify that your external ip address really is what you expect it to be.

second - you CAN have more than one "A" record for a domain...  you could do this for example:

example.com
MX = mail.example.com
A = mail.example.com = 1.2.3.4
A = ftp.example.com = 1.2.3.4
A = joeschmoe.example.com = 2.3.4.5
etc

so, ftp://mail.example.com would work, as long as your ftp server is at 1.2.3.4  
ftp://joeschmoe.example.com would work if the ftp server is at 2.3.4.5

if you DONT want to access it by a hostname, then you need to make sure the ftp server is on an ip address which doesn't exist as an A record.  

remember, everything on the internet travels by ip address anyway and not hostname at all... the hostnames are there just for convenient resolution to ip addresses.