Whenever I try to use ftp to access my server, I simple get "ftp: connect: Connection refused"

There is no firewall (checked with iptables -nL )

I can't access from any computer on the lan, nor can I even use: ftp localhost from the server.

I tried starting proftp from the command line, and get this error: Patagonia - fatal: Socket operation on non-socket

When I inform init.d, I get: ProFTPd is started from inetd/xinetd.

My guess is that inetd is trying to launch the ftp daemon, but this fails, hence connection refused.

If there is any other reason this might be failing, please illustrate. Or if you know why proftpd is having trouble running, please advise.

Thank you

--Dave

Your server is telling you what the problem is, somewhere. You need to look in the logs, probably /var/log/messages but I'm not familiar with current Mandrake.

Yes, the right way to test this is to first get it working with
ftp localhost
then branch out.

/var/log/proftpd has quite a few files in it, all of which are size 0 bytes. All of which were created 1 or 2 months ago. Nothing yesterday when I spent an hour trying to get it up and running. I did check these yesterday, but forgot to post that I did.

--Dave

(assuming that there is no firewalls in between you and the FTP) try iptables -F to flush everything out of them
then logon again. if it dosent work after that then there is a problem with your config file...

logon, or reboot. I'm logged in through 2 terminals on my Mac, and logged through the gui on the machine (located in a scary, spider infested basement.) It's our only files/application server so a reboot will need to be done tonight.

Which process would need to be restarted, to avoid this headache.

Thanks

--Dave