Can't log in pure-ftpd server with IE, but can with command prompt.
 

Hi,

I'm currently running a pure-ftpd server on my computer running Debian Linux. I did it according to an article titled: "Virtual Hosting With PureFTPd And MySQL (Incl. Quota And Bandwidth Management)", which I can't post because i don't have 5 posts yet =p. It described how to use a MySQL database for virtual accounts, and its running pure-ftpd as a standalone (for more information search the article name on google).

Well, I can log in with a command prompt FTP client just fine, and everything seems to work. When I try to login with clients such as FlashFXP, or Internet Explorer, I get the prompt to log into my account. After logging in, it waits for a long time "Getting contents of folder", and then I get an error message "An error occured opening that folder on the FTP server. Make sure you have permission to acccess that folder. Details: The operation timed out."

Is there any way to fix this?

Thanks in advance!

Are you using an actual account of anonymous account. What exactly are you typing into the address bar in IE? Is FTP enabled in your IE settings?

If you have an actual account your using to connect, try something like this in the address bar:

http://username:password@ftp.server.com

I run a server using PureFTPD, theres a commandline option you need to have set, IE is a broken FTP client, but theres a commandline option to accept these "broken" clients...
don't have my setup in front of me, but look through the docs... its in there...

Oh, ok. That's what I thought. I had trouble setting the command line option, though. I tried

/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd-mysql start -b -D

But that didn't seem to affect anything (I'm kind of new with linux). How would I enable these command line options?

Thanks!

Hmmm, the -b should do it.. what kind of errors are showing in your log?

It may be caused by the different connection mode (passive vs active).

But I can't recall exactly which one using the passive mode by default.

Please refer to the following article:

http://slacksite.com/other/ftp.html

Well, when I try to start up pure-ftpd with the -b option, all I see is this:

Am I supposed to see the -b somewhere in there? Because the -B at the end is something different...

pure-ftpd -b directly;

or modify the pure-ftpd-mysql script, add the -b switch.

Umm, when I try to run it directly, it tells me
Unable to start a standalone server: Address already in use
And I'm having some trouble editing the script. Can anybody help?

Thanks!

Server is already running? Try stop it first.

Then,

Ok, I tried this, but after I entered the command you gave me, it excecuted it without any problems (but it didn't return anything either). But, when I tried to log in, same thing happened =(.
Also, when I tried to run the command you gave me twice, without stopping the server, it didn't give me any errors like the one it gave me before. When I stopped the server, then tried to run "Pure-ftpd-mysql -b" by itself, it stil gave me the "Unable to start standalone server" message.

Any ideas?

Do you check the passive actvie thing.

I'm now under windows XP and check the IE setting, found it using passive mode by default, and the ftp command use port mode automatically. It's the difference.

Yeah, look into your Pure Config file, this sounds like a Passive/Active setting issue.

Umm, when I use FlashFXP, and turn Passive mode off, it still doesn't work ='(.
I think it's because of the -b. I'm new to linux, and I think the problem is that I can't get the -b option to turn on.

Has anybody used pure-ftpd-mysql before and fixed this problem?

Again, thanks for all the help.

Ok, I just realized, running any of the init.d scripts doesn't seem to be doing anything to pure-ftpd. Fore example, if I try typing

/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd-mysql stop

It says: "Stopping ftp server: pure-ftpd", but when I try to connect to it, I can still log into my ftp account! Like I said, I'm pretty new, but could this be because I'm running the server in standalone mode? How do I switch to the other mode (inetd I think)?