[SOLVED] FTP connections not working

[DZoom]

Hi there,

I freshly unpacked froxolor on my server, set it up correctly (at least no errors appeared, all checks were green). Afterwards i configured the FTP with ProFTPd as required (at least for Ubuntu 16.04, while Ubuntu 18.04 is running on the server).

ProFTPd is running on the server:

# systemctl status proftpd.service
● proftpd.service - LSB: Starts ProFTPD daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/proftpd; generated)
   Active: active (running) since Sun 2019-04-28 06:25:01 CEST; 4 days ago
     Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
  Process: 18863 ExecStop=/etc/init.d/proftpd stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCES
  Process: 18873 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/proftpd start (code=exited, status=0/SUCC
    Tasks: 1 (limit: 4915)
   CGroup: /system.slice/proftpd.service
           └─18908 proftpd: (accepting connections)

I created a user, assigned an ftp account to him, but cannot log in, neither as that user nor as root (using the systems root users password). When logging on to the FTP, the client states:

Status:	Connecting to 123.123.123.123:21...
Status:	Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response:	220 ProFTPD 1.3.5e Server (websts.xyz.de FTP Server) [::ffff:123.123.123.123]
Command:	AUTH TLS
Response:	234 AUTH TLS successful
Status:	Initializing TLS...
Status:	Verifying certificate...
Status:	TLS connection established.
Command:	USER oldtdarg
Response:	331 Password required for oldtdarg
Command:	PASS ***********
Error:	Connection closed by server
Error:	Could not connect to server

and the the proftpd log (/var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log) on the server shows:

2019-05-01 01:27:41,951 aServer proftpd[25790] aServer (ns3033680.ip-91-121-116.eu[91.121.116.128]): FTP session opened.
2019-05-01 01:27:41,984 aServer proftpd[25790] aServer (ns3033680.ip-91-121-116.eu[91.121.116.128]): mod_sql/4.3: unrecoverable backend error: (1045) Access denied for user 'froxlor'@'localhost' (using password: YES)
2019-05-01 01:27:41,984 aServer proftpd[25790] aServer (ns3033680.ip-91-121-116.eu[91.121.116.128]): mod_sql/4.3: check the SQLLogFile for more details
2019-05-01 01:27:41,984 aServer proftpd[25790] aServer (ns3033680.ip-91-121-116.eu[91.121.116.128]): FTP session closed.

So after some reading, i double checked that the correct credentials for the mysql database are in the froxlor config (which is /var/www/html/lib/userdata.inc.php ?). And they are, tested by manually connecting to the mysql database on my server as froxlor user:

# mysql -u froxlor -p -h localhost
Enter password: 
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 3411
Server version: 5.7.25-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 (Ubuntu)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| froxlor            |
+--------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> quit;
Bye
# 

So this works, the credentials from the config work. I can't figure out what the problem with the connection is and why my froxlor user cannot connect to the ftp.

# php -v
PHP 7.2.15-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 (cli) (built: Feb  8 2019 14:54:22) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.2.15-0ubuntu0.18.04.1, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies

Anything else i should provide so that support is easier?
/var/log/syslog and /var/log/authlog show up nothing for the timestamps of failed ftp connection attempts.

What did i miss?

[d00p]

Any special characters in the password that the proftpd config maybe doesnt like? The error clearly states that proftpd just has problems connecting to sql to read the user-data

[Tealk]

I think he forgot to set the sql password in /etc/proftpd/sql.conf.

[DZoom]

 

On 5/3/2019 at 7:26 AM, d00p said:

Any special characters in the password that the proftpd config maybe doesnt like? The error clearly states that proftpd just has problems connecting to sql to read the user-data

No that was fine, i double checked. Thanks for the hint though.

On 5/3/2019 at 8:43 AM, Tealk said:

I think he forgot to set the sql password in /etc/proftpd/sql.conf.

He didn't.

I didn't change the "FROXLOR_MYSQL_PASSWORD" entry. Just looked back in the froxlor configuration of the ftp service and clearly followed the hints step by step. Which i shouldn't have done.

Since that change it works, thanks guys.

(If you want to know what i think could be improved to make froxlor more user friendly: change the order of hints for FTP setup. And at least in one case the setup for Ubuntu 16.04 works on Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS)

[d00p]

What do you mean by "change the order of hints"? Could you be more specific please.