CentOS / RHEL 7,8 : unable to start vsftpd service

While starting or restarting the vsftpd service you might get below error on an RHEL 7 system.


# systemctl restart vsftpd.service 

 
Job for vsftpd.service failed. See 'systemctl status vsftpd.service' and 'journalctl -xn' for details.

If it is the first time you are starting vsftpd you might have to update few parameters in the configuration file /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf for it to work. Follow the steps below to get the vsftpd service working.

1. Update below parameters in /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf file. By default the parameter listen has a value “NO” assigned to it and parameter listen_ipv6 is uncommented.

listen=YES              # default is NO
#listen_ipv6=YES  # default is uncommented

2. Restart vsftpd service once you have made the above changes.

# systemctl restart vsftpd.service

3. Make sure there no syntax error in the vsftpd configuration file – etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf. Run the vsftpd command and verify the functionality.

# vsftpd