FTP User cannot log in

I have a website/virtual server where I want to have “sort of” anonymous FTP access from the outside so that others can upload files.

  1. Virtual Min --> MyServer --> Edit Server --> Server options has SSL enabled.

  2. Edit Users --> add user “uploads.myserver” --> set to “FTP Only”

  3. Give “uploads.myserver” a simple password like “flowers”

Now go to an FTP client and trip to log in… transcript says login is incorrect for

host: my.serer.org
usr: uploads,myserver (where “myserver” is the user/admin name for this site)
pw: flowers

It should work, but does not. I think the only think I did recently on this server was to enable SSL.

What am I missing. It used to work.

CentOS 6.2
Virtual Min: the latest version

Howdy,

What output does this command produce:

rpm -qa | grep proftp

We’ve seen what you’re describing occur when using ProFTPd from a third party repository… the above command will show if that’s the issue in this case or not.

-Eric

Aloha, Eric:

% rpm -qa | grep proftp

we get:

% proftpd-1.3.4a-1.el6.rf.x86_64

Aha, yes, it looks like you have the RPMForge repository enabled, and the ProFTPd version that comes from that is installed.

Check out the article hear titled “Why does PHP / ProFTPd no longer work after performing updates? (I’m using CentOS, and enabled third party repositories)”:

https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/system/faq

OK, understood. Then 2 questions:

  1. is this a typo in the documentation/faq?

“If you’re seeing that issue – the simplest fix is to first disable that third party repository, remove the current proftpd package that’s installed, and then to install the ProFTPd version from the Virtualmin repository (which, once the third party repository is enabled, can be done by simply running yum install proftpd).”

should it read “…once the third party repository is DISabled, can be done by simply…”

  1. How do I disable auto updates from pulling from the RPMForge repository? (*nix newbie here…)

Howdy,

I’ve corrected that typo, thanks for pointing that out.

As for how to disable pulling in updates – the simplest way is to disable the rpmforge repository. If you look in /etc/yum.repos.d/, you’ll likely see a .repo file there that says something about rpmforge. You can just rename it so that it no longer ends in .repo – or if you edit it, you can change the “enabled” parameter within it to “0”.

There’s also some trickier things you can do, such as using “includepkgs” to tell it to just pull in the packages you want.

-Eric

  1. I edited rmpforge.repo, set enabled to 0; This seemed the best thing to do as renaming the file leaves us open to having it be installed again, from Only God Knows Where. But if the file is there it should be safer.

DONE

  1. yum remove proftpd … “Completed”

DONE

  1. yum install proftpd…“Completed”

Version this time: proftpd-1.3.3g-2.el6.x86_64

DONE (and tested from my FTP client for SFtp and IFPT)

plain FTP still fails on myDomain.org

user “uploads.mydomain”
password (as set in Virtual Min for this domain/user who is set to “FTP only”

FTP still fails…

After the remove and install do I need to reboot the server or update some config?

Perhaps there is a step I am missing?

BTW… the admin user for MyDomain.org going in via SFTP or IFTP can get. It is only this one lo-level user that cannot get in via plain FTP.