proftpd - refusing connections?

August 7, 2013 20.8k views
hello212311
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hello212311
Hi, I installed wordpress using the following directions: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/one-click-install-wordpress-on-ubuntu-12-10-with-digitalocean I got all the way though and am now trying to login by FTP. I completed the FTP install section as given and am now getting the following message when I try to login: Connection refused I tried with various clients, including ftp through my mac (terminal) - same response. One thing I did do was install memcached - not sure whether that's related in any way. I also restarted the server.
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8 Answers
kamaln7 MOD August 7, 2013
Is ProFTPd running? 

service proftpd start

netstat -plutn | grep :21
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hello212311 August 7, 2013
Thanks Kamal -

I get the following message to the first command:

ProFTPD warning: cannot start neither in standalone nor in inetd/xinetd mode. Check your configuration.

The second command does not produce any output. I tried netstat without grep and see apache2, sshd, sendmail and mysqld listening on various ports
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kamaln7 MOD August 7, 2013
What's the output of these commands: 

sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd check-config

sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd force-start
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hello212311 August 7, 2013
hmm...I had a feeling that it was related to memcached...

root@aaaaa:~# sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd check-config
aaaaa proftpd[1408]: mod_tls/2.4.3: compiled using OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012' headers, but linked to OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012' library
aaaaa proftpd[1408]: mod_sftp/0.9.8: compiled using OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012' headers, but linked to OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012' library
aaaaa proftpd[1408]: mod_tls_memcache/0.1: notice: unable to register 'memcache' SSL session cache: Memcache support not enable

Your second command produced output that included both openssl and memcache...

root@aaaaa:~# sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd force-start
* Starting ftp server proftpd aaaaa proftpd[1427]: mod_tls/2.4.3: compiled using OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012' headers, but linked to OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012' library
aaaaa proftpd[1427]: mod_sftp/0.9.8: compiled using OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012' headers, but linked to OpenSSL version 'OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012' library
aaaaa proftpd[1427]: mod_tls_memcache/0.1: notice: unable to register 'memcache' SSL session cache: Memcache support not enabled
aaaaa proftpd[1427] 192.254.189.222: fatal: Socket operation on non-socket

Note that I replaced my hostname with aaaaa (the name is a little nsfw)
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kamaln7 MOD August 7, 2013
Edit /etc/proftpd/modules.conf and comment LoadModule mod_tls_memcache.c out. Restart ProFTPd, does it work now?
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amkause August 12, 2013
Hi Kamal,

I have the same problem, my FTP Service will not start:

[root@hosting init.d]# service proftpd start
Starting proftpd: [FAILED]

[root@hosting init.d]# sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd check-config
Usage: proftpd {start|stop|restart|try-restart|reload|status}
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kamaln7 MOD August 12, 2013
@amkause: What's the output of this command? 

proftpd --configtest
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syntaxTerr0r December 23, 2014

Got a similar problem here and figured it out this way :

Check in your /var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log.1 or /var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log
If you've got this message : ProFTPD killed (signal 15)
You have the same problem... ProFTPD seems to fail restart on log rotate (I got no explaination on this).

Fix is here or here

Hope it'll help.

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