vsftpd "the operation timed out"

[Lollan]

I'm running vsftpd 2.05-12 on my RHEL 5.2 server with iptables and selinux disabled.

On Windows, I can browse through the ftp directories without issue, but cannot seem to upload successfully to any of them. At the moment, the file transfer will begin and get to 20KB or so, then a few minutes later I receive the dreaded "The Operation Timed Out" message.

Interestingly enough, if I use "ftp" in Windows and "send" the file, it uploads without a hitch to the same directory. I just can't seem to "drag and drop" the archive as I'd like to.

From a Linux server, if I sftp in, it transfers slower and slower with time (starting at a pitiful 100KB/s or so) and goes lower and lower until it eventually times out. Lots of "stalled" messages in the process. Send also seems to work if I telnet in this situation. I would prefer to use sftp however.

From localhost, I can sftp and "put" files without a hitch, but this does not work for any of the networked servers. I've made sure that firewalls and selinux are disabled on everything.

I'm pretty stumped at this point to be honest. Any ideas?

vsftpd.conf:

anonymous_enable=NO
local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES
anon_upload_enable=YES
dirmessage_enable=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
connect_from_port_20=YES
xferlog_file=/var/log/vsftpd.log
xferlog_std_format=YES
ascii_upload_enable=YES
ascii_download_enable=YES
ftpd_banner=Welcome to ftp.
listen=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
userlist_enable=YES
tcp_wrappers=YES
pasv_enable=YES
pasv_min_port=11000
pasv_max_port=11010

Thanks in advance everyone!

[Ziplock]

Hi Lollan, welcome to the forums!

sftp is through sshd and isn't related to vsftpd as far as I know. You may need to check the config files in /etc/ssh to see what is going on.

Is there any information in the logs in /var/log directory?

Check:

/var/log/vsftpd.log
/var/log/messages
/var/log/secure

[Lollan]

Hi Lollan, welcome to the forums!

sftp is through sshd and isn't related to vsftpd as far as I know. You may need to check the config files in /etc/ssh to see what is going on.

Is there any information in the logs in /var/log directory?

Check:

/var/log/vsftpd.log
/var/log/messages
/var/log/secure

Ziplock,

Thanks for the follow up! I went through the afforementioned logs and do not see any noteworthy messages, /var/log/secure shows my authentications, but no errors

Mar 30 16:56:57 lollan sshd[1487]: Accepted password for Lollan from 10.40.16.80 port 37075 ssh2
Mar 30 16:56:57 lollan sshd[1487]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user Lollan by (uid=0)
Mar 30 16:56:57 lollan sshd[1489]: subsystem request for sftp
Mar 30 16:57:19 lollan sshd[1487]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session closed for user Lollan

One thing I have noticed is that in ifconfig, I have a lot of errors:

          RX packets:805178 errors:2567 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:2567
          TX packets:418157 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

Any idea as to where to investigate the errors? I've checked most of the /var/log files I could think of that might contain useful information but have come up empty handed thus far.

Thanks in advance!

[Ziplock]

Alright, it doesn't sound like sshd(sftp) or vsftpd are causing the problem as the problem occurs with both. The behaviour with it slowing down over time sounds like a network buffer somewhere is filling up. Like you said, it could be network errors, but a the percentage of 0.3% indicated from your ifconfig reports isn't anything to be worried about.

My next guess would be DNS issues:

1) Can the machine find it's own name properly? Does it have an entry in /etc/hosts for the external address that everyone is trying to connect to?
2) Is the DNS server on you network configured with the right name for the external address? This will affect other machines trying to connect as they can't work out what the name of the server is (this happens even if you transfer by IP address.
3) If there isn't a DNS server, make sure the connecting hosts have the hostname in their respective /etc/hosts file.

I'll have a think about what else it could be, but try this for now.

Cheers.

[abdul raziq]

Hi Dear,

i guess that it would be issue of Iptables. check your iptables hope it iptable will fix your problem


Thanks

Raziq