Debian – proFTPD unable to connect after update ECONNREFUSED

debiandebian-jessieftpnetworkingproftpd

I am working on Debian 8 – ran a series of automated system updates and now I am unable to connect to my local server running proFTPD.

I have made no changes to the client attempting to connect to the server.

I was connecting to the server on port 21 with no issues. Since my update when I try to connect in my usual way I get the following error:

ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server

From my research the error states my connection is being refused by a firewall or something of the like. However, I am not running any firewall, iptables is set to allow "all" – this is a local server.

I have checked the proFTPD error logs, and there are no errors logged.

I have ran proFTPD config check and status check, both return positive (it is running)

When I try to run 

telnet localhost 21

the result is 

connection refused

when I run 

telnet localhost 22

I get a connection.

When I try to sftp into my server i get an authentication failed (probably because I haven't set up the keys)

I have checked the proFTPD config file and it is listening on port 21.

I have spent the day on this, seems like it would be easy to fix, however I'm having no luck.

Question:

How can I get back to using port 21 and just connect using normal ftp?

Thanks

UPDATE

Further testing

ps -ef | grep proftpd

results show proftpd accepting connections

however

lsof -i : 21

shows nothing listening… so it looks like proftpd isn't actually listening for some reason

when checking port 22 it simply shows ssh

I read that proftpd may be blocked from listening on port 21 if something else is running. 

fuser -n tcp 21

shows no other process attached to that port. 

service proftpd status

returns "active (running)"

any other thoughts?

Best Answer

SOLVED:

I must have installed something which enabled secure ftp, and this somehow disabled the un-encrypted connection on port 21

In the proFTPD.conf file, at the very end, there was a directive to enable modules in conf.d folder

in the conf.d folder, there is sftpd.conf, asking to run secure ftp on port 2222

before making any changes I run

lsof -i :2222

the result is proFTPD is listening for a connection on port 2222. When I check port 21, nothing is listening for a connection.

I commented out the include line in proFTPD.conf

include /etc/proftpd/conf.d/

Then I restart proFTPD and now I can connect normally again. I have no idea why enabling secure ftp would disable normal ftp.

Hope this helps someone else... the amount of time wasted on this problem is unreal.

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