Cannot get any ftp to work

Question

I can't seam to get vsftpd working, ( or any ftp daemon for that matter)
my /etc/hosts.allow are correct, my /etc/services is correct, my vsftpd.conf is setup also.
even nmap reports that ftp is open:
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
80/tcp open http
Any other ideas? i keep getting the error:
ftp: Can't lookup `192.168.1.5:ftp': Servname not supported for ai_socktype
maybe it is something with my /etc/hosts:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost linus-server
or /etc/hosts.allow
sshd: ALL
vsftpd: ALL
help would be great!

Answer 1

Also, I just tested using -A, and no go.
Hmmmm. Okay. Try logging in with the comand line client, and add the "-d" to the two different ftp commands:
<pre class="command">ftp -A -d ftp.servername.com</pre>for active mode or
<pre class="command">ftp -d ftp.servername.com</pre>Adding the "-d" makes it a little more verbose than normal. Perhaps there'll be a clue in there.
If that doesn't give you any clues, one more thing to try is to toggle the use of PORT/LPRT commands. Once you're connected to the remote server, and before you list the directory, issue this command at the ftp prompt:
<pre class="command">sendport</pre>If I do this on the ftp server I'm connecting to, I get this result (I started ftp with -d):
<pre class="command">ftp> sendport
Use of PORT/LPRT cmds off.
ftp> ls
---> LIST
421 Service not available, remote server timed out. Connection closed</pre>which is not exactly the same as your error, but kind of close.
Finally, since it's a laptop, have you tried connecting to the server from another network, like at work or a friend's house? Also, can you log into another ftp server? Perhaps there's a problem on the server end at your web server. It seems unlikely, but it's possible. You could try ftp.apple.com. You can log in with the username "anonymous" and giving an email address as the password. There's not much there any more, but it might be a good way to test.
Finally, are there any messages in the console or system log when you try to log in? You can see them using the Console application from your Utilities folder. Also, if you click on the "Logs" icon in the Console app, you'll toggle a listing of logs and directories. Look under the /var/log listing for the ipfw.log and see if anything gets logged in there when you're trying to connect to your server.
charlie