I was running a bog-standard Debian box with mediawiki. It all ran very well. Then the Network Manager decides he wants me to move it onto a VMWare platform, so I installed it onto Ubunto Hearty Heron (VMWare recognises Ubuntu but doesn't recognise Debinan...driver issues, I think).

Mediawiki installs no problems, then I try to ftp some files onto the platform with plain ordinary ftp from a windows machine command line. I get the login authentication request, but whenever I try to authenticate, even with a valid login name, as soon as I enter the login name, and before the need for a password, I get thrown out with an error 550. I never get as far as the password request

OK, so I look at the logs and there's nothing much in there, so I go on the server and from a command window, I try to ftp to the same server...same problem.

So then I try on the server to ftp to 127.0.0.1, and I get the same problem.

The server and the ftp setup was done (as I have done dozens of times before) completely standard, using apt-get, with no errors. The only difference I see is that this is on a VMWare platform.

Heres the login attempt from the platform to itself:

root@linux01:/home/jim# ftp linux01
Connected to linux01.<co name>.uk.
220 linux01.<co name>.uk FTP server (Version 6.4/OpenBSD/Linux-ftpd-0.17) ready.
Name (linux01:jim): jim
550 Authentication failure
Login failed.
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.

and here's the log entry that generated:

root@linux01:/home/jim# tail /var/log/syslog
<stuff deleted>
Aug 9 21:40:53 linux01 in.ftpd[6284]: connect from 192.168.4.41 (192.168.4.41)
root@linux01:/home/jim#

(Yeah, genuinely, that's all it gave me!)


I've Googled till I'm blue in the face to no avail...what stupid trap have I fallen into? Any ideas?

I had the same problem in while making an avnetppc board to act as a FTP server. that is, when i start the board and try to ftp from some other server, the login authentication will pop but when i give my user name it throws an "550 authentication error" without even accepting a password.

This may be due to the absence of the following .so files...
1)pam_ftp.so
2)pam_nologin.so
3)pam_rhosts_auth.so
4)pam_shells.so
5)pam_unix.so
6)pam_unix_acct.so
7)pam_unix_auth.so
8)pam_unix_session.so

you get these files for your VMWare platform, and create a directory name "security" under "lib" of your ramdisk image or NFS directory(depending on how you boot your VMWare) and place all the above files in that "security" directory(Note that you can soft link 6th,7th and 8th file with the 5th file as they are the one and the same). This solved the same problem in my case and hope this helps...

For cross checking use, /usr/lib/security in your general linux distro...

I had a look at /lib/security, and I have the following:

root@bhlinux01:/lib/security# ls -al
total 444
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-07-02 11:21 .
drwxr-xr-x 16 root root 4096 2008-08-01 13:49 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11812 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_access.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4744 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_debug.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2716 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_deny.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5624 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_echo.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11612 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_env.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6608 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_exec.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4584 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_faildelay.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11376 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_filter.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4292 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_ftp.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 29484 2008-05-27 15:36 pam_gnome_keyring.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10180 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_group.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7308 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_issue.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5624 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_keyinit.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7724 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_lastlog.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12628 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_limits.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9272 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_listfile.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4684 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_localuser.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4024 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_loginuid.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7864 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_mail.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16096 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_mkhomedir.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3780 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_motd.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19904 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_namespace.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4336 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_nologin.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3056 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_permit.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9044 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_rhosts_auth.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4084 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_rhosts.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3172 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_rootok.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5632 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_securetty.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13416 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_selinux.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4080 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_shells.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9756 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_stress.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11368 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_succeed_if.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9284 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_tally.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8588 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_time.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6208 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_umask.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2008-08-01 12:45 pam_unix_acct.so -> pam_unix.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2008-08-01 12:45 pam_unix_auth.so -> pam_unix.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2008-08-01 12:45 pam_unix_passwd.so -> pam_unix.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 2008-08-01 12:45 pam_unix_session.so -> pam_unix.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 47372 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_unix.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8192 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_userdb.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3772 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_warn.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5028 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_wheel.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12792 2008-05-16 16:21 pam_xauth.so


so it looks like I have the right files in the right place....

but any other suggestions would be good...I'm running out of hair to tear out. I have tried reinstalls, and various different ftp servers, including proftpd, ftpd and ftpd-ssl, but they all behave the same so I believe its a problem specific to the blade server....HELP!

Problem was that unknown to me, the install process installed ftp-ssl, which was intercepting traffic for the ftp server and causing the problem. I removed ftp-ssl, de-installed all other ftp variants and reinstalled proftpd, and everything worked just fine!