CentOS - Apr 2006 - vsftpd: transfer of files fails

I've got a problem with vsftpd on a new CentOS system. Most users can 
login and list and everything but when they want to transfer files the 
client says "transfer failed" or so. However, it works fine with two 
users. Of course, these two have been created by me and used only by me. 
So, I didn't detect the problem before other users tried to upload.
I tried with the command line ftp client and get this:

ftp> put medlingua_beta.sql
local: medlingua_beta.sql remote: medlingua_beta.sql
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||59620|)
150 Ok to send data.
  0% |                                     |     0       0.00 KB/s    
--:-- ETAftp: netout: Connection reset by peer
  0% |                                     |    -1       0.00 KB/s    
--:-- ETA
451 Failure writing to local file.

vsftpd logs "FAIL UPLOAD:" for this, nothing else.
Of course, first thought is there might be some permission problem. 
However, I checked everything and the directory permissions are identical 
with the two accounts that work. Same goes for the user details they have. 
They only difference is that one of the two accounts is uid 50x while all 
the others are over 10000 - including the second one that works. All users 
have login shell /bin/false, are in /home and are chrooted to their 
homedir.

The same users with the same directory setup, permissions and everything 
work fine on the old machine with vsftpd 1.1 (CentOS has 2.0). The vsftpd 
configuration is basically how it is when installed from base plus a few 
additional settings (like write-enable=yes etc.). SELINUX is in permissive 
mode and there are no advanced ACLs in effect.
The baffling thing is that it works for these two (and maybe other users I 
haven't identified yet), but not for the majority, although all seem to be 
setup equivalent.
One other thing I just notice is that I can delete root-owned files 
(standard 644 permissions) with any of the FTP users (the working and the 
non-working ones) which should not be possible at all.

Any hints?



Kai

-- 
Kai Sch?tzl, Berlin, Germany
Get your web at Conactive Internet Services: http://www.conactive.com

Check to make sure its not a problem on the client side - are there
personal firewalls blocking port 20/21?

Kai Schaetzl wrote:
> I've got a problem with vsftpd on a new CentOS system. Most users can 
> login and list and everything but when they want to transfer files the 
> client says "transfer failed" or so.

I'm now almost sure that this is a bug in vsftpd 2.0.2 or at least the 
CentOS package of it. I had misinterpreted the xferlog first, it was only 
one account that couldn't transfer files. After a lot of trying and 
renaming it turns out that *any* user (I didn't try with root and similar, 
though, but with ordinary users I can throw away) who's primary group id 
is 10174 (group name doesn't matter) cannot transfer files via FTP. The 
transfer fails as described earlier.
I didn't try with a different ftpd and I don't have another CentOS
system
at the moment where I could double-check it. But I have done everything 
else I could imagine to rule out other causes. I also uninstalled and 
reinstalled the vsftpd rpm with yum.
Would anyone here like to review this finding?
Or knows a different cause of this problem than vsftpd?

Kai

-- 
Kai Sch?tzl, Berlin, Germany
Get your web at Conactive Internet Services: http://www.conactive.com