Recent weird ProFTPD shenanigans

[LawsHosting]

I understand this has been discussed before but them posts do not really give any insight.

Ok, I recently started to get the dreaded Address already in use for ProFTPD - this can be random and no-one can connect to FTP while this happens untill I killall and restart ProFTPD.

The below is from syslog just after upgrading DA:

Apr 20 10:06:01 server3 /usr/bin/crontab[18957]: (root) LIST (diradmin)
Apr 20 10:06:01 server3 /usr/bin/crontab[18974]: (root) REPLACE (diradmin)
Apr 20 10:06:01 server3 proftpd[18990]: xxx - Failed binding to 0.0.0.0, port 21: Address already in use
Apr 20 10:06:01 server3 proftpd[18990]: xxx - Check the ServerType directive to ensure you are configured correctly.
Apr 20 10:06:26 server3 proftpd[19048]: xxx - ProFTPD 1.3.3e (maint) (built Sat Apr 16 2011 21:04:52 BST) standalone mode STARTUP

So, yeah, I'm not sure why this is happening, or started to happen.

Any insights?

 

[SeLLeRoNe]

I suppose that some script (like a perl one) are binding on port 21... Happend to me aswell (but on port 80) causing apache problem.

You need to investigate about what program is binding port 21

If is proftpd maybe a reinstall should be suggested.

Regards

 

[LawsHosting]

Only one I know which uses FTP logins is Wordpress - have about 30 installations on this box - maybe its a bug in Wordpress's new version?

 

[SeLLeRoNe]

Well of course should be, but, for be sure where is the problem i suggest you to reinstall proftpd and check (when this problem appear) which program is using/binding port 21

Regards

 

[zEitEr]

When restarting ProFTPd, try to stop

service proftpd stop

instead of

service proftpd restart

You should make sure, that proftpd was completely stopped. And only then start it:

service proftpd start

I suppose, that proftpd somehow doesn't manage to clearly stop, when the startup script makes it to start again.