Does the user/group nobody/nogroup exist? Check /etc/passwd and /etc/group to find out.

And what happens if you change to "DefaultServer on"?

Cool

I changed DefaultServer to 'on', restarted the service, and it worked! Heavens know why it worked this time, but I can now log on with any of the users on my system ('cept root of course) using my real IP...thank you so much! I really appreciate all of your help!

~Laura

Cool! Glad you got it working :)

Feel free to post back if it starts acting up...

Cool

If you are using xinetd, which it seems you are from an ealier post, you need to do two things. The fist is to edit the proftpd.conf file to look like this:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This is a basic ProFTPD configuration file (rename it to
# 'proftpd.conf' for actual use. It establishes a single server
# and a single anonymous login. It assumes that you have a user/group
# "nobody" and "ftp" for normal operation and anon.

ServerName "ProFTPD Default Installation"
ServerType inetd
DefaultServer on

# Port 21 is the standard FTP port.
Port 21
# Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new dirs and #files from being group and world writable.
Umask 022

# To prevent DoS attacks, set the maximum number of child #processes to 30. If you need to allow more than 30 concurrent #connections at once, simply increase this value. Note that this #ONLY works in standalone mode, in inetd mode you should use #an inetd server that allows you to limit maximum number of #processes per service (such as xinetd)
MaxInstances 30

# Set the user and group that the server normally runs at.
User nobody
Group nobody

# Normally, we want files to be overwriteable.
<Directory /*>
AllowOverwrite on
</Directory>

# A basic anonymous configuration, no upload directories.
<Anonymous ~ftp>
User ftp
Group ftp
# We want clients to be able to login with "anonymous" as well as "ftp"
UserAlias anonymous ftp

# Limit the maximum number of anonymous logins
MaxClients 10

# We want 'welcome.msg' displayed at login, and '.message' displayed
# in each newly chdired directory.
DisplayLogin welcome.msg
DisplayFirstChdir .message

# Limit WRITE everywhere in the anonymous chroot
<Limit WRITE>
DenyAll
</Limit>

</Anonymous>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And the second add a file in /etc/xinetd.d/ called proftpd (no ext.) and in that file you will need the following:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
service ftp
{
flags = REUSE
socket_type = stream
instances = 50
wait = no
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/proftpd
bind = <the-ip-you-wish-to-bind-to>
log_on_success = HOST PID
log_on_failure = HOST RECORD
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are two things to change in the above. The first is the path to the executable proftpd, server =, and the second is the IP address to bind to, bind = .

Once this file exists in /etc/xinetd.d/ the ftp service will start when you boot via xinetd.