Connection refused after installing vsftp on Ubuntu 8.04 with fail2ban

Question

I have been using an Ubuntu 8.04 server with fail2ban for a while now (12+ months) and using ftp over SSH without any problems. I have a new user that needs to put files onto the server from an IP modem.

I have installed vsftp (sudo apt-get install vsftp) and everything installed correctly.

I have created an ftp user on the server following this guide.

Whenever I try to connect to the server with my ftp program (filezilla) I get an immediate response of:

Connection attempt failed with "ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server".

I have looked into fail2ban and cannot find any problems. The iptables setup is:

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination
fail2ban-ssh  tcp  --  anywhere             anywhere            multiport dports ssh

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination

Chain fail2ban-ssh (1 references)
target     prot opt source               destination
RETURN     all  --  anywhere             anywhere

VSFTP config file (commented lines removed)

listen=YES
anonymous_enable=NO
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES
dirmessage_enable=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
connect_from_port_20=YES
chown_uploads=YES
chown_username=[username]
secure_chroot_dir=/var/run/vsftpd
pam_service_name=vsftpd
rsa_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
rsa_private_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

Any ideas on what is preventing access to the server?

Solution

There's a known issue with vsftp and newer Filezilla versions. I was using that combination for a while, and after a Filezilla update, I found I could no longer connect to my ftp server using ftpes. I think the error message I was getting was different though, but I thought this is worth trying...

http://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/7873

"The problem is an incompatibility in the cipher suite that FileZilla is supporting and the cipher suite configured by default on vsftpd... The solution is to add to the /etc/vsftpd.conf :

ssl_ciphers=HIGH

Note, whilst this problem was active, connection via regular FTP was fine.

Comments

[Ssingh]

Can you connect on your ftp server localy from the localhost ? If you can it's probably some firewall issue if not it's vsftpd thing. Also enable logging with xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd.log to find out more what is going on.