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Accepted
Edward Tanguay
Asked: 2009-07-31 10:57:52 +0800 CST

Why would I not be able to access VPS via FTP all of a sudden?

  • 772

I have a VPS, CentOS, was set up automatically with HyperVM.

I set up the FTP connection with lxadmin.

I've been logging into my server via FTP for weeks.

Today it says:

Status: Connecting to 74.126.30.21:21...
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Error:  Could not connect to server
Status: Waiting to retry...
Status: Delaying connection due to previously failed connection attempt...
Status: Connecting to 74.126.30.21:21...
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Error:  Could not connect to server

I can still log in via SSH.

  • what kinds of things could have caused this?
  • what are some things I can check/change so I can use FTP again?

Here's my netstat output, how can I tell from this if the "port is listening on the server itself"?

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it doesn't allow me to telnet to the listed ftp port:

alt text

here's the iptables info:

alt text

ftp vps

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Couple Guesses:

    1) You made some iptables rules changes to allow the traffic but did not commit them with 'service iptables save'

    2) Is the FTP service running?

    Does netstat show that the port is listening on the server itself? If so, can you telnet to the port on the server itself, what about remotely?

    • 2

  2. To show listening ports in netstat, use -l, e.g. netstat -tlnp. You can also use lsof -i tcp:21. To look for a running process use ps, e.g. ps -ef | grep ftpd.

    • 1