I have a machine that I want to use as an ftp/telnet server. Let's not discuss security issues here
-suffice to say that this is a local environmet with no connection to the outside world.

I use xinetd (this is a SUSE box, I did not make
any special changes)
both /etc/xinetd.d/vsftpd and /etc/xinetd.d/telnetd are chmodded 777

when trying to connect, even from LOCAL
I get for ftp
Service not available , remote server closes connection
and for telnet connection refused
# ftp 172.16.167.4
Connected to 172.16.167.4.
421 Service not available, remote server has closed connection.
ftp> quit
# telnet 172.16.167.4
Trying 172.16.167.4... telnet: connect to address 172.16.167.4: Connection refused

Now
# cat /etc/xinetd.d/telnetd
service telnetd
{
socket_type = stream
server=/usr/sbin/in.telnetd
protocol = tcp
wait = no
user = root
disable =no
}


# cat /etc/xinetd.d/vsftpd
# default: off
# description:
# The vsftpd FTP server serves FTP connections. It uses
# normal, unencrypted usernames and passwords for authentication.
# vsftpd is designed to be secure.
service ftp
{
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = no
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/vsftpd
# server_args =
# log_on_success += DURATION USERID
# log_on_failure += USERID
# nice = 10
disable = no
}

# cat /etc/xinetd.d/telnetd
service telnetd
{
socket_type = stream
server=/usr/sbin/in.telnetd
protocol = tcp
wait = no
user = root
disable =no
}

I have set hosts.allow to ALL:ALL

Any ideas what is wrong?

Is xinetd running?
Is vsftp listed in the /etc/services file?

Have you tried connecting to localhost instead of the IP address i.e.
# ftp localhost

michaelk, thanks, but:
>Is xinetd running?
Sure, ps -ef -u myuser or root finds /usr/bin/xinetd running
>Is vsftp listed in the /etc/services file?
No, but it is not listed either in a corresponing slack installation (that used inetd instead of xinetd though) and which works fine as ftp and telnet server. If I need that, what exactly do I add to /etc/services?

>Have you tried connecting to localhost instead of the IP address i.e.
># ftp localhost
Sure, same result(service not available, remote host has closed connection)

Have you checked any logs for errors?

You mean /var/log/messages?

Dec 13 17:29:51 quality4 kcheckpass[23834]: Authentication failure for myuser (invoked by uid 1000)
Dec 13 17:29:51 quality4 syslog-ng[3226]: STATS: dropped 0
Dec 13 17:30:31 quality4 su: (to root) myuser on /dev/pts/4
Dec 13 17:31:32 quality4 xinetd[23891]: libwrap refused connection to ftp (libwrap=pure-ftpd) from 172.16.167.3

Looks like it tries to use pue-ftpd??
And what about the authentication failure?
However, when I tried to ftp and then looked at /var/log/messages. there
was no message....

Whatever ftp server your trying to use may not be configured for tcp-wrapper.
post the output of the following command
strings -f vsftp | grep hosts_access

Also try pure-ftp instead of vsftp

No such file for either case.
(I ran as root from a home directory. )
Now what?