FTP connection to the Plesk server fails: unable to read configuration file ‘/etc/proftpd.conf’: No such file or directory

Symptoms

• When connecting to the Plesk server via FTP using an FTP client, connection fails with one of the following error messages:

  Status: Connecting to 203.0.113.2:21...
  Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
  Error: Connection closed by server
  Error: Could not connect to server

  ---

  421 Service not available, remote server has closed connection.

• Service status of xinetd shows the following error message:

  # systemctl status xinetd
  ...
  proftpd[22000]: fatal: unable to read configuration file '/etc/proftpd.conf': No such file or directory

Cause

Main configuration file /etc/proftpd.conf is missing:

# ls -l /etc/proftpd.conf
ls: cannot access '/etc/proftpd.conf': No such file or directory

Resolution

1. Connect to the Plesk server via SSH.

2. Copy proftpd.conf configuration from a sample:

   # cp -p /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf /etc/proftpd.conf

   Note: If this file is absent, copy it from from a working Plesk server using the same operating system and OS version.

3. Restart the xinetd service:

   # systemctl restart xinetd