FTP broken again

Submitted by securewebs on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 16:33 Pro Licensee

We have at least 5 licensed pro version running primarily on CentOS 7 and FTP has become a real pain in the ass. With luck, just running the command

modprobe ip_conntrack_ftp

That sometime will work. After uninstalling FTP and reinstalling it I was able to fix a server a few days ago and now FTP no longer works again.

------- Job for proftpd.service failed because a timeout was exceeded. See "systemctl status proftpd.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details

I see nothing helpful in the log files. So here we go again. I tried deleting the keys in etc/ssh such as ssh_host_ecdsa_key and then recreated the keys. That did not work either. Nor have I found any SSH lines in the config file that could be deleted that would allow the FTP server to start. What is it with this proFTPD that it won't work or if it work it breaks. Does anyone know what is wrong with that program. Is there something besides uninstalling and reinstalling that will fix it once in for all? It has been described as a good FTP server but you sure can't prove it by me. Is there any options for FTP?

Status: 
Active

Comments

Submitted by andreychek on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 17:11

Howdy -- sorry that you're seeing an issue with ProFTPd!

I thought this issue sounded familiar, so I did a little searching and found that the last time it came up, it was with your server roughly a year ago.

We unfortunately haven't seen similar issues since that time.

Do you recall what happened with the issue you had posted here:

https://www.virtualmin.com/node/22252

Did you ever end up getting that working, or have you been having problems with that this whole time?

Is your server a dedicated server, or a VPS? And what is the output of the command "free -m"?

Also, what output do you receive if you try starting ProFTPd on the command line as root:

/usr/sbin/proftpd

That may give some insight into what's not working.

Submitted by securewebs on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 17:47 Pro Licensee

Dedicated servers. Yes, the history with ProFTPd is not a happy one. The majority of customers don't use it because in a WordPress or Joomla or other CMS they don't need it. OK, the command line actually worked. I almost feel silly that I did not try that before. Is that somehow different than via the control panel? All is well that ends well.

Submitted by andreychek on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 18:06

Doing it from within the GUI should be using the init script.

I'd be curious what happens if you stop the current ProFTPd process, and then try starting it again from the command line using this command:

service proftpd start

Do you receive an error, or does that start properly?

Submitted by securewebs on Fri, 12/16/2016 - 12:30 Pro Licensee

There are probably other issues with the server. Very slow and for a new Xeon QuadCore with just a handful of accounts, it really should not be. The GUI was not able to stop the FTP service. It took 2 or 3 minutes and then just show the service running. I thought I would do the experiment with the command line and now I have managed to break the FTP. Oh for joy, what did I not leave it alone.
[root@wichita ~]# service proftpd start
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl start proftpd.service
Job for proftpd.service failed because a timeout was exceeded. See "systemctl status proftpd.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

So, back where I started.

Submitted by andreychek on Fri, 12/16/2016 - 13:15

Ah, that looks like the same error you received when running it from the GUI.

What happens when trying to start it back up as root with the "/usr/sbin/proftpd" command you had used earlier?

Submitted by securewebs on Fri, 12/16/2016 - 14:08 Pro Licensee

OK, now the GUI shows it running, and I tested FTP and yes, it is working. Weird. But on the command line the status reports it failed to start. Maybe I should just stop fooling with it and be grateful.