Requesting advice on SuSE 9.3 FTP user/password issues - trouble connecting
 

I've been trying to figure out how to set up vsftpd on a test machine to emulate the ftp setup on our current ftp server. I was able to track down part of what I needed with the gracious help of poster AlucardZero on this forum, who pointed out that the vsftpd process likely being run via xinetd.

I've managed (or so I thought) to set everything up correctly - but I cannot connect to my test box as the user the ftp client program we're using expects. I can see in the vsftpd log that I'm making contact, but the client program is automatically failing, and attempts to get in from the Windows command line (ftp <ip>) request user and password, then fail out with '530 Login incorrect'.

Everything I've seen online so far indicates that the ftp login for a local user (with vsftpd configuration settings including anonymous_enable=NO and local_enable=YES) should be the same as the 'normal' login for that user, and that the passwords should be the same as well. This is the case on the current FTP server, where a Windows command line login uses the same password as attempting to su into the user in question. On my test machine, I can su into the user in question with the password as well. I simply cannot seem to connect with this user via ftp.

Below are the things I've found so far during my search on the two servers:
I'm obviously missing something simple, because I've read many posts on this site and others concerning successful setups - I simply haven't managed one on my own. Most of these eventually boiled back down to this howto page, and I've tried to follow the 'add and change user' instructions shown there to no avail.

If someone here has a suggestion for another filename to search on or a different howto that might explain my problem, I would greatly appreciate the chance to see it.

thats a reall bad bug boy-check your soft or maybe try a different user

This is an unhelpful, meaningless reply which has unfairly removed this thread from the zero-reply list. As such, this reply and any further replies related to this one, be removed, restoring zero-reply status to this thread.

Please do not post to a thread if you have nothing constructive to add.

Seen a few things cause the 530 message:

• Users created with no shell (i.e. some 'ftp only' accounts). Set the shell to be /bin/false. Check the check_shell option in vsftpd.conf too.
• Try adding "pam_service_name=vsftpd" to your /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
• Do you have selinux enabled/firewall on? (probably not, but still...)
• Is there a delay between boxes when you try to log in? Could it be trying to do a reverse-lookup?

Just some thoughts.

TB0ne, thank you for your prompt response.

In answer to the items you brought up:

1)pam_service_name=vsftpd was already present inside the vsftpd.conf file.

2)There was about a thirty-second delay yesterday before connecting, but it was missing today. The Windows command line ftp command didn't even let me issue the user name until after that.

As for the other two items you brought up - I dunno; I couldn't find that 'check_shell' inside the vsftpd.conf file, so I'll go look it up. Thanks for the advice.

Hope it helps. But, check the user ID's themselves in the /etc/passwd file (providing you're not using virtual users), and see what's defined for their shell's. Doing a "usermod -s /bin/false <userid>" may fix it, without having to define the check_shell option.

Thanks. I think I've got it solved - managed to get in and download via 'get' command, anyway.

Turned out the /etc/pam.d/vsftpd files weren't matched to each other. Once that was solved, everything else worked. Thanks for pointing the 'pam_service_name=vsftpd' line out to me - I noted it was present, but then later started thinking about what that might actually mean. Better late than never, I guess. Thank you again for your assistance.

Not a problem, glad it helped.