Hi Laura,

LabKey Server doesn't act as an FTP server, so unless you have separately installed something for FTP it's completely expected that you won't be able to connect via FTP.

Are you seeing authentication problems from inside of R?

As Jon mentioned, there are requirements on the file permissions for .netrc. It be readable only by the user account:

https://www.labkey.org/wiki/home/Documentation/page.view?name=netrc

Thanks,
Josh