im also a bit of a linux newbie, and went through probably the same proftpd problems as you, have got my server running sweet now tho (mainly thanks to ths forum, and i didnt even have to ask a question.. thanks people
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webmin is an EXCELLENT way of configuring linux, but I found editing the proftpd.conf file manually was of far greater benefit to me, I would suggest you do this yourself. A list, with examples and explanation of all the 'directives' you can use are available on the proftpd site (
http://proftpd.linux.co.uk/docs ). For reference the reason your webmin is behaving strangely is probably because the 'module config' is incorrect, the default setting is not the same as the proftpd setting, or wasnt for me.
basically you have 2 ways of creating an ftp user, that i know of, method 1 is to create a system user as normal, and in the server config add their username.. e.g.:
<Anonymous /home/ftpuser/public_ftp>
User ftpuser
Group users
AnonRequirePassword on
</Anonymous>
where ftpuser is a system account and is a member of the users group and /home/ftpuser/public_ftp is a directory that the user has access to which will be used as the ftp root directory for this user login.
method 2 is to use aliases, this was the way i did it for simplicity and to keep my system as uncluttered as possible... create a single user such as above in method 1, and then create aliases to that user in the proftpd.conf file, e.g.:
<Anonymous /home/ftpuser/public_ftp>
User ftpuser
Group users
UserAlias SkiTz0.BiLL-BoB ftpuser
AnonRequirePassword on
</Anonymous>
this would allow me to login to this server with the username 'ftpuser' OR 'SkiTz0.BiLL-BoB' .. both using the same password, ftpuser's password.
by adding the line 'AuthAliasOnly on' it would only allow access via an aliased username, login using the user ftpuser directly would not work.
I hope that helps, and isnt too confusing, just trying to give a good explanation.
