Hi it may have been asked before but I can not find it.

I have a root server which comes with plesk. AN am a newb but this is to do with security so thought I'd ask here.
I have lost the username and password for my FTP. Is there a way I can get these back by looking through plesk 8 or by using SSH and searching on the linux box it self.

I thought to myself that as I have plesk I'll just make a client and give him a username and password for FTP to the related domain and use that. But when using WinSCP, the responce from the server is "Connection has been unexpectedly closed. Server sent command exit status 1" And the second one is "Cannot initialize SFTP, is the server running an SFTP server?".

When I used my original username and passwords, the ones I lost, I never had any problems.

Any help....?
Thank you.

If you can't remember a password then simply change it.

How do I do that, through Plesk, if so , for which user/client.
Also what about the other issue of cutting me of as soon as I connect.

How do I enable a SFTP server? It must have already been active at some one stage because I had no problems before. I let this guy have SHH access while he came round to tell me how much it would cost to make the server secure, safe from attacks and such like, and since then I havent been able to FTP.

Thanks for replying

Make sure the SFTP service is running.
A reboot might start it up automatically for you.

Isnt there a Command that starts it. Im so new to linux and have no reall time to spend learning, (untill I win the lottery)
G

In all of the suggestions so far we assume you have access to this box and can ssh in and su to root. I reread your posts this morning and that might be a wrong assumption.

IF you can get in as root simply type:
"passwd name_of_winSCP_user"
This will allow you to change the password of the winSCP user. Then you'll be able to use winSCP as you wanted to.

If you cannot log in and switch to root, you need to talk to someone who has access to the box.

If you've lost your root password that presents a whole different issue. We'll hope that is not the case.

Thanks DOTHQ. I do have root access and will try that for usernames I know I have. Is there a command to list the usernames. I dont know why I have forgotten these details, Im normally very good but I've hardly used them. So is there a way to list the usernames that should have ftp or sftp accounts/details. Thanks all for your help.
Graham

To see all the users allowed on your system type:
more /etc/passwd

The users you are looking for should be near the bottom of that file. The ones you see near the top are system ID's that help with running different aspects of your system.

cat /etc/passwd
will also work (it will just jump right to the end of the file)

both commands are showing you the password file. User names are the first item in the line. You'll also see other tidbits about the user such as home dir, default shell etc.

Thanks so much DotHq. I will try it out when I get home. Thanks for your help.