in reply to Net::FTP::Recursive problems, prematurely closing connection

Just so you know, I tried your updated code and it ran successfully producing the below structure on my local hard drive (part listing). So perhaps your problem lies elsewhere, maybe with the firewall you mention.
PowerEdge R610 BIOS Windows Server 2008 x86 BIOS OS Independent 2009-03-30 - R610-010004BIOS.txt 2009-05-27 - R610-010104BIOS.txt 2009-08-31 - R610-010206BIOS.txt 2009-12-14 - R610-010306BIOS.txt 2010-04-15 - R610-020013BIOS.txt ... Chipset Driver Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 x64 Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 x64