proftpd dead but subsys locked
 

What is wrong: I cant stop or restart proftpd, but when starting it it says it was succesfully started. Anyway, it doesn't work. When I checked it's status it said "proftpd dead but subsys locked". What does that mean and how can I get proftpd work again?

hi.

have a look at /var/log/messages - maybe you will find some lines telling you whats going on.
additonally, you can search your proftpd-config for log-directives (SystemLog in particular). this directive defines the log-file where proftpd will write errors/warnings to. if nothing is specified or completely missing, proftpd logs to /var/log/messages.

Final Solution that worked for me for past 2 years
 

See this Link

Getting the below error when starting proftpd service, on Linux.
Please find some of the steps below to overcome this issue:
1) Check the status of proftpd service, if it return the status with the below error then the service is dead & locked.

[test@server ~]$ sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd status
proftpd dead but subsys locked

2) If you get the proftpd dead error, first stop the xinetd service.

[test@server ~]$ sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd stop

3) Now stop the proftpd service, and then remove the lock file forcefully.

[test@server ~]$ sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd stop
[test@server ~]$ sudo rm -f /var/lock/subsys/proftpd

4)Now start the proftpd service.

[test@server ~]$ sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd start

5)If are getting the below error while starting the proftpd service. Then add the server IP in hosts file.

Starting proftpd: – getaddrinfo 'hostname' error: Name or service not known
- warning: unable to determine IP address of 'hostname'
- error: no valid servers configured
- Fatal: error processing configuration file '/etc/proftpd.conf' [FAILED]

6) Add the below entry to /etc/hosts, to overcome above error (5).

<server_ip_address> <server_hostname>

7) Now start the proftpd service, it starts succesfully.

[test@server ~]$ sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd start
[test@server ~]$ sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd status
proftpd (pid xxxxx ) is running...

Start the xinetd services finally.

[test@server ~]$ sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd start

Let us know, if this helps….