Curl error 67 triggers during a file download from a remote server to a local domain. It generally happens due to incorrect login details.

As a part of our Server Management Services, we help our Customers to fix similar curl errors regularly.

Let us today discuss the possible causes and fixes for this error.

What causes Curl error 67?

At times, when users try to download a file through curl from a remote server to a local domain, they often see an error message as below:

curl: (67) Access denied: 530

The common reasons for this error include:

1. Incorrect server name, username, or password combination.
2. Connection issues on the remote FTP server.
3. User permission problems.
4. Firewall restrictions

Let us now look at each of these reasons in detail and the fixes for each of them.
 

Incorrect server name, username, or password

The error 67 commonly triggers due to the use of an incorrect password, server name, or username. The 67 is an error code from curl, which means that “The user name, password, or similar was not accepted and curl failed to log in. This error occurs when the server refuses non-encrypted authentication,

In a recent support request that we received, the customer was receiving the 67 error code while trying to download a file through curl. The password that the user used contained a special character %. User wondered if it was actually triggering the error.

Normally using special characters in the password won’t cause trouble with file transfer. The error was due to an issue with cases in the username. The normal format to be used for the command is :

curl -u 'username:password'
or
curl -u username:password

If this is showing error, try the following command:

curl -k -T filename --ftp-ssl --ftp-pasv -u "username\$domain:password" ftp://ftp-domain.com/

User permission problems

The error 67 on curl triggers when the user does not have enough permission on the FTP server.

The tip to fix this issue would be to correct the user permissions. For example, in vsftpd server, we can solve this issue by setting userlist_deny to NO in /etc/vsftpd/user_list. After that, we assign ‘allowed users’ in file /etc/vsftpd/user_list. Then we put the ‘not allowed users’ in /etc/vsftpd/ftpusers file too. This ensures proper permission for each users.
 

Firewall restrictions

The 67 curl error can trigger due to firewall restrictions. For instance, if the user’s IP address is blocked in the server firewall, it can trigger the 67 error.

The exact step to unblock it may depend on the firewall used in the server. For example, in cPanel servers, we can unblock IP addresses from ConfigServer Security & Firewall. There will be an unblock icon next to the blocked IP address. Simply clicking the icon unblocks the IP address in the firewall.
 

Alternate Solutions

Apart from the major solutions mentioned above, there are some alternate solutions for it. For instance, the Plesk scheduled backups may send this curl error to the Plesk administrator.

The backup may complete successfully once it is able to establish a successful login. This generally happens due to connection issues on the remote FTP server. The logs of the remote server will provide us further details on the error message.

Further, connection to the server using encrypted authentication could also help to solve this error. For this, the customer has to enable SSL in the FTP configuration settings.

[Need any further assistance in fixing Curl errors? – We’re available 24*7]
 

Conclusion

In short, curl error 67 triggers during a file download from a remote server to a local domain. It generally happens due to incorrect login details. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers fix this error.