I upgraded from RHEL 5.3 to RHEL 5.4
My vsftpd configuration was working fine on 5.3 so i did the same configurations for 5.4, but there looks to be some config issue.

Name (10.0.0.31:root): W2K3DOM01\Administrator
331 Please specify the password.
Password:
421 Service not available, remote server has closed connection
Login failed.
No control connection for command: Success

I keep getting this error and am not able to access my ftp server on 5.4

The vsftpd.conf looks like this:

cat /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
# no anon access
anonymous_enable=NO
# put locks onto the files currently transferred
lock_upload_files=YES
# enable write access
write_enable=YES
# prevent changing access rights – ACLs get screwed otherwise
chmod_enable=NO
# enable that user is able to see the root of gpfs
chroot_local_user=YES
# allow local user access
local_enable=YES
listen=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
# set the ftp root directory users can see when they connect to the FTP
local_root=/var/opt/IBM/sofs/ftproot
log_ftp_protocol=YES
syslog_enable=YES
#show user/groupnames instead of only numeric IDs
text_userdb_names=YES

Also at the same time, i checked /var/log/secure and /var/log/messages, the logs are as below

/var/log/messages

Sep 15 16:06:42 sonasdebugn2 vsftpd: Tue Sep 15 14:06:42 2009 [pid 8229] CONNECT: Client "10.0.0.38"
Sep 15 16:06:42 sonasdebugn2 vsftpd: Tue Sep 15 14:06:42 2009 [pid 8229] FTP response: Client "10.0.0.38", "220 (vsFTPd 2.0.5)"
Sep 15 16:06:52 sonasdebugn2 vsftpd: Tue Sep 15 14:06:52 2009 [pid 8229] FTP command: Client "10.0.0.38", "USER W2K3DOM01\Administrator"
Sep 15 16:06:52 sonasdebugn2 vsftpd: Tue Sep 15 14:06:52 2009 [pid 8229] [W2K3DOM01\Administrator] FTP response: Client "10.0.0.38", "331 Please specify the password."
Sep 15 16:07:02 sonasdebugn2 vsftpd: Tue Sep 15 14:07:02 2009 [pid 8229] [W2K3DOM01\Administrator] FTP command: Client "10.0.0.38", "PASS <password>"
Sep 15 16:07:02 sonasdebugn2 vsftpd: Tue Sep 15 14:07:02 2009 [pid 8228] [W2K3DOM01\Administrator] OK LOGIN: Client "10.0.0.38"
========================================================================

var/log/secure

Sep 15 16:14:02 sonasdebugn2 vsftpd: pam_winbind(vsftpd:auth): getting password (0x00000000)
Sep 15 16:14:02 sonasdebugn2 vsftpd: pam_winbind(vsftpd:auth): user 'W2K3DOM01\Administrator' granted access
Sep 15 16:14:02 sonasdebugn2 vsftpd: pam_winbind(vsftpd:account): user 'W2K3DOM01\administrator' granted access


Any help ?? PLZ

Also, i forgot to mention that i found some threads on net which says that this problem can be solved by making sure that ftp is started as a standalone service.

In my configuration, i start the service as service vsftpd start
The netsat also shows

netstat --proto=inet,inet6 -pnl | grep ":21"
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:21 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 28269/vsftpd

So, i don't think inetd or xine is doing any interference here.
How to make sure that vsftpd is standalone ??

I think this is some thing to do with Passive FTP, there is a configuration option some where regarding that. I don't think it makes much difference if its stand alone or not.
LISTEN=yes I think controls it as a standalone process. You can also confirm it by looking for the vsftpd process. If its running all the time then its standalone. If only runs on connection then its controlled by xinetd.
Also chkconfig --list will show you some info.

listen=YES in my vsftd.conf file
and chkconfig is off on all runlevels which is expected in my configuration.
For the passive mode, i never did any setting on RHEL 5.3 so can there be some change in RHEL 5.4 ??

Maybe either Iptables / your network has changed or vsftp has been updated or default options have changed.
Do you have another RHEL5.3 around to test on?

I sure do have RHEL 5.3 and lot's of them

Just tell me what can i try, ne damn idea, and i'll do that.
I am desperate to solve this issue.

Try moving the configuration file to a 5.3 system and see if that works just to prove if its the configuration file or the 5.4 upgrade.

I did this and verified it already.

Did the exact same configuration on both RHEL 5.3 and RHEL 5.4 and it worked on 5.3 but not on 5.4

Also, checked that the child process that FTP Server started for the client after successful login, was killed.

Is there any firewalls etc on your network that might affect it. I would check between 5.4 and 5.3 and see what the difference there are in vsftpd
rpm -qa | grep vsftpd
Maybe there's a change with the version numbers that has changed some default options etc.
Also have a look at the follwing options (see the man page for more information)

pasv_promiscuous
Set to YES if you want to disable the PASV security check that ensures the data connection originates from the same IP address as the control connection. Only enable if you know what you are doing! The only legitimate use for this is in some form of secure tunnelling scheme, or perhaps to facilitate FXP support.

Default: NO
port_enable
Set to NO if you want to disallow the PORT method of obtaining a data connection.

Default: YES
port_promiscuous
Set to YES if you want to disable the PORT security check that ensures that outgoing data connections can only connect to the client. Only enable if you know what you are doing!

Default: NO

Finally after lots of hunting, struggling i got this working.

Had to add these lines in vsftpd.conf

#Make sure PORT transfer connections originate from port 20 (ftp-data).
connect_from_port_20=YES

And, Voila!! It Worked
Thanx for the suggestions that were put here.