Installing vsftpd on Ubuntu - could not bind listening IPv4 socket?

Question

For my network security class I have to set up an FTP server on a virtual machine. We are set up with 3 VM's - Gateway, Client, and Server. I have installed vsftpd using the command:

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

I then created a configuration file vsftpd-anon.conf in the location /etc/vsftpd/. The file contains:

#Set the server to run in standalone mode
listen=YES

#Enable anonymous access
local_enable=NO
anonymous_enable=YES

#Disable write access
write_enable=NO

#Set root directory for anon connections
anon_root=/var/ftp

#Limit retrieval rate
anon_max_rate=2048000

#Enable logging user login and file transfers. /var/log/vsftpd.log
xferlog_enable=YES

#Set interface and port
listen_address=192.168.50.5
listen_port=21

The IP address 192.168.50.5 is the eth0 for my server VM. When I run the command

sudo vsftpd /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd-anon.conf

I get the error:

500 OOPS: could not bind listening IPv4 socket

To check to see what was running on port 21, I ran the command:

sudo netstat -tulpn

And saw this:

I issued the command:

sudo killserver 29383

And checked again. The vsftpd was still there, but with a different PID. Running the command:

sudo killall vsftpd

Does the same thing. I have already tried reinstalling. Anyone know what is going on?

Answer 1

You are correct in determining the root cause of the error - could not bind listening IPv4 socket means that something is already listening to port 21 (the default ftp server port).

To stop the currently running vsftpd correctly:

sudo service vsftpd stop

Once you've done that, start your daemon with the customised init script:

sudo vsftpd /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd-anon.conf

Once you've confirmed that it's working, you'll need to change your init scripts and disable the existing vsftpd service so that it doesn't automatically start on bootup.

Answer 2

You are getting this error probably because of xinetd ftp is running.

The procedure mentioned below will resolve the following errors:

A) 500 OOPS: could not bind listening IPv4 socket, for vsftpd

B) Server hangup immediately after connect, for ncftpget

Follow the procedure mentioned below to rectify the error:

1) To View which ftp service is running use

$ lsof -i | grep ftp

2) To stop xinetd :

$ sudo service xinetd stop

3) After stoping xinetd restart your vsftpd service by typing :

$ /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart (Become root and run this command)

4) Also check the vsftpd.conf with this one

listen=YES

local_enable=YES

write_enable=YES

local_umask=022

dirmessage_enable=YES

use_localtime=YES

xferlog_enable=YES

secure_chroot_dir=/var/run/vsftpd/empty

pam_service_name=vsftpd

rsa_cert_file=/etc/ssl/private/vsftpd.pem