Issue :

Was able to login to all FTP accounts using the root password earlier but now it doesn’t seem to work. Where to check that?

Fix :

Go to WHM >> Main >> Service Configuration >> FTP Server Configuration.
At the bottom of the page, you’ll find an option as ‘Allow Logins with Root Password’
Make sure that it is set to ‘Yes’ and save the settings.

This should resolve the issue.

Issue :

Need to transfer a folder from a remote server to the local server.

Solution :

One way of doing this is using the ‘wget’ command.

First, log in to your server via SSH and and launch wget mirroring using the following command :

wget -m ftp://username:password@ftp.host/folder/

Do replace the above with the corresponding values.

This will mirror the folder to your current directory location.

Finally, copy the downloaded files from the ftp.host/ directory to where you need them to be.

The main advantage of this method is that it is much more interactive and has many options.
Use ‘wget –help’ or ‘man wget’ for more information on this.

Source : WHT

Issue :

SFTP users can view server files and folders by simply changing the path to ‘/’. How can this be avoided?

Solution :

SFTP means FTP access over SSH.
You will have to chroot the individual users in order to prevent them from viewing files outside their chroot jail.
Normal FTP access has chroot isolation at the ftp daemon level.

Issue:

Login to domain.com via FTP fails for all users. The following error message is displayed:
Cannot log in, home directory inaccessible

Cause:

There could be several reasons:

1. This might happen if the hostname is longer than 15 characters.
2. Domain resolves to a different IP than the one which has been configured in Plesk.
3. FTP server configuration is broken.

Solution:

1. To change the host name right-click the My Computer icon, choose Properties. Select Computer Name tab then click Change button. Specify the computer name as desired and click OK. When done, restart your computer.

2. Please check if domain.com resolves to the same IP it has been configured for in Plesk.

3. If the name of your server is shorter than 15 characters and domain resolves to the proper IP it could mean that something is broken in the FTP configuration.

You should follow these steps to fix the issue:

Repair permissions of the home folders of the problematic domains. It can be done using the Control Panel.

Plesk >> Domains >> Mark problem domain >> Click on Check permissions

Re-configure FTP using Plesk command line tool ftpmng.exe as follows:

“plesk_bin\ftpmng.exe”—remove-vhost—vhost-name=yourdomain.com
“plesk_bin\ftpmng.exe”—reconfigure-vhost—vhost-name=yourdomain.com

Note : Check and verify if you have domains on dedicated IPs

Issue :

After changing the FTP credentials, the user is unable to log in to the FTP location. It just keeps asking for username/password. The domain is managed by Plesk control panel.

Solution :

Some permissions might have been screwed while changing the credentials.

To set the permissions so that the user can access the FTP location:

1 .Delete file .Security from the domain directory:

2. Reconfigure the domain settings:
“plesk_bin\websrvmng.exe”—reconfigure-vhost—vhost-name=domain name

3.Check permissions for the domain. Click the Domains shortcut in the navigation panel. Select the check box corresponding to the domain name you want to perform permissions check on. Click Check permissions.

IMPORTANT: All custom permissions will be lost if you repair permissions via Plesk Panel. They should be restored manually.

Issue :

How to allow SFTP but disallow shell-level access ?

Solution :

To allow SFTP access but without shell access, you must first enable (jailed) shell via WHM. But then run the following so they do not have command line/shell access:

usermod -s /usr/local/cpanel/bin/noshell username

Of course, replace “username” with the actual account user name.

Then generate a key pair for the account in question:

cd /home/userid/.ssh

Run:
ssh-keygen
(Accept the default names, i.e. id_rsa)
Enter any passphrase and be sure to remember the passphrase used.

After this two files will be created:

id_rsa
***This is the private key.
id_rsa.pub
***This is the public key.

Now entering the following:

cat id_rsa.pub >> authorized_keys

The id_rsa file is the private key to be used with FileZilla:

Preferences —> SFTP —> add key file.

Then configure FileZilla with SFTP and port – (insert ssh access port here), the user ID but NO password.

Remove both files from the on-line account:
id_rsa.pub
id_rsa

Now SFTP transfers should work.

Issue :
The FTP program lists only 1000 files in a directory. How can this be changed?

Fix :

Go to the FTP configuration file ( in this case, /etc/pure-ftpd.conf ).
Change the value in the following line :

LimitRecursion 1000 8

Issue:

FTP access for specific cPanel accounts needs to be disabled. There is no native way in cPanel/WHM to achieve this.

Solution :

Assuming that you are using pure-ftpd, go to /usr/sbin/pureauth . There would be a section in the code as follows :

# Create ftpusers array
if ( -e ‘/etc/ftpusers’ && !-z ‘/etc/ftpusers’ ) {
open my $ftpusers_fh, ‘<', '/etc/ftpusers';
my @ftpusers = <$ftpusers_fh>;
close $ftpusers_fh;
@ftpusers = grep { s/[\r\n\s]//g } @ftpusers;

# disallow accounts in ftpusers
if ( any( sub { lc($acctowner) eq lc($_) }, @ftpusers ) ) {
failed_auth();
}
}

All you need to do is create a file as /etc/ftpusers and put the cPanel usernames in it.
FTP access will no longer be available to the cPanel accounts corresponding to these usernames.
Others would be able to login!

Usually Time Out Error occurs when we try to upload large files. We need to check following on our local system:

1. Try enabling “passive mode” in FTP client.

2. Check personal firewall/security settings, programs like Norton Anti-Virus to make sure that they are configured to allow FTP access. Try turning these programs completely off and retry FTP.

3. Check for any timeout settings in local FTP client and try increasing this.

4. If you continue to have trouble, the time out via the FTP is most likely because of one or more dropped packets at your ISP or at any of the intermediate routers. When you connect to the server, you are usually going through 14-20 other routers before it gets to the destination. If any one of them lose a packet it can cause problems with FTP. One way to get around this is to have a constant PING open – this keeps the connection through the different servers alive.

On a  Windows Machine :

open a DOS window on your computer and type the following, it will keep a ping open:

ping -t domainname.com

On a  Linux Machine, use the command  below:

ping domainname.com

PS : Replace “domainname.com” with your domain name. Then once your upload has completed, press Control-C to cancel the ping.

Issue:

Getting the following error while connecting through Filezilla :

Error: Connection timed out
Error: Failed to retrieve directory listing

Cause :

Default setting of Connection in Filezilla is like this.

-> FTP -> Active Mode: Get External IP Address From This URL. Which pointed to http://ip.filezilla-project.org/ip.php .

This is the source of the problem. If we go to above mentioned URL, we will probably get a result of 127.0.0.1. If the Filezilla client needs the external address and is given 127.0.0.1 then there will be problems in connection.

Fix :

We need to configure our Filezilla client as mentioned below.

Open Filezilla, go to Edit -> Settings >> Click on Connection >> FTP: Choose Active >> Click on Connection >> FTP >> Active Mode: Select “Ask your operating system for the external IP address” >> Click on Connection >> FTP >> Passive Mode: Choose Fall Back to Active Mode >> Press OK.

Try connecting to your FTP site once again and it should work now.