Hello all,

I wanted to start testing some ftp transactions on my FC6 machine. I installed proftp and used the default proftpd.conf (I didn't make any changes) file but when I run proftpd I get the following error:

- IPv4 getaddrinfo 'Blade2' error: Name or service not known
- warning: unable to determine IP address of 'FC6Linux'
- error: no valid servers configured
- Fatal: error processing configuration file '/etc/proftpd.conf'

I am running proftpd as root since running it as my local users seems to also give it issues.

Can anyone else tell me how I can fix this?

check out /etc/proftpd.conf and change servertype from inetd to standalone

Default config in proftpd.conf shows that servertype inetd is commented out and is actually using standalone.

# set-nick <nickname>
# This is the ProFTPD configuration file
# $Id: proftpd.conf,v 1.1 2004/02/26 17:54:30 thias Exp $

ServerType standalone
#ServerType inetd

proftp is a little sensitive about being able to resolve the host to an ip address and vice versa. Make sure that your hostname appears in the hosts file with the correct ip address.

As far as I know the hostname is in the hosts file. The entry in my host file is as follows:

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
::1 Blade2 localhost.localdomain localhost

Is there an entry missing?

Are you using a static IP or dynamic dns. I have dyndns and all I had to do to get mine running is add this to my proftpd.conf file....
ServerType standalone
DefaultServer on
MasqueradeAddress name.dns.org **

** for example: joeuser.homelinux.com

In your hosts file entry I see no mention of the host FC6Linux, which appears to be what proftpd is complaining about.

I suggest you create an entry with the static ip and the host name FC6Linux in hosts and try to start proftpd again.

Sorry about the confusion... I am actually having this problem on two FC6 machines. One named Blade2 and one named FC6Linux.

The host files are exactly the same just with the machine names changed:
Blade2:
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
::1 Blade2 localhost.localdomain localhost
127.0.0.0 localhost Blade2

FC6Linux:
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
::1 FC6Linux localhost.localdomain localhost

Both give the same error. Focusing on one of them, Blade2
I added the entry to my /etc/hosts file:
blade2 192.168.11.102 but still got the same error.

Then I tried to resolve this name:
[lmcilwain@Blade2 etc]$ host blade2
Host blade2 not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

[lmcilwain@Blade2 etc]$ host 192.168.11.102
Host 102.11.168.192.in-addr.arpa not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

I don't use a DNS server, so all I have is my host file entries.

I'm sure I'm telling you something you already know, but Linux is case-sensitive. So "Blade2"<>"blade2".

Furthermore I recommend you change 127.0.0.0 to 127.0.0.1 to conform with IP numbering conventions (a host can not end on "0" nor can it end on "255").

See if that helps

I have made that correction in my /etc/hosts file.

I have changed local host to 127.0.0.1 and changed blade2 to Blade2 but I was not able to resolve the hostname to an IP address.

[lmcilwain@Blade2 etc]$ host Blade2
Host Blade2 not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

[lmcilwain@Blade2 etc]$ host 192.168.11.102
Host 102.11.168.192.in-addr.arpa not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

[lmcilwain@Blade2 etc]$ host localhost
localhost has address 127.0.0.1
Host localhost not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
Host localhost not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

I never actually used "host", however a little googling taught me that "host" completely ignores the "/etc/hosts" file.

A ping of your hosts would most likely work now.

Are you now able to start your proftpd? If not, can you post the entire contents of your hosts file?

OK, thats odd..

For some reason ftp is actually working now. I started proftpd as root but I had done that before and it complained of not being able to resolve the hostname. I gave it a try just before I posted this and it started with no problem:

nobody 17339 1 0 13:06 ? 00:00:00 proftpd: (accepting connections)

afrosamurai:~ lem$ ftp lmcilwain@firewall
Connected to firewall.
220 FTP Server ready.
331 Password required for lmcilwain.
Password:
230 User lmcilwain logged in.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.

And your right, doing "host hostname" still doesn't resolve anything and for that matter nslookup doesn't do anything as well. But pinging my hostname does work.:

[root@Blade2 ~]# ping Blade2
PING localhost (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.132 ms
64 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.160 ms

--- localhost ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.132/0.146/0.160/0.014 ms

I'm a little confused as to how it started working when I haven't changed anything since my last post. I did reboot once or twice for other things but that was about it.

Just wanted to say thanks to pk2001 and Drumplayr for helping me resolve this issue for my server too.
I am also getting this error message:
- IPv6 getaddrinfo 'localhost' error: Name or service not known
I don't know why, I have this line in my hosts:
127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain

It still works though, thanks to these two lines:
ServerType standalone
MasqueradeAddress [my domain name.com]

Thanks!

add this to your /etc/hosts file:

::1 yourhostname localhost

also, you might want to disable IPV6 if you dont use it.

if you go into proftd.conf right at the top you should have the option:
UseIPv6 on

turn it "off":
UseIPv6 off

save and run it again.

i found the answer at howtoforge page -> perfect_setup_ubuntu704_p6
(cant post urls since its my first post here.. :P)

served me well.