I just set up a Directadmin server running CentOS servers which don't allow PureFTPD logins to the server and gives an error like,

Response: 530 Login authentication failed.
Can you fix it?

This error may happen due to the incorrect ownership of pureftp.passwd file or password database corruption.

At Bobcares, we often get requests to fix Pure-ftpd 530 login authentication failed on DirectAdmin as part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let’s get into the details and see how our Support Engineers fix Pure-ftpd 530 error.

What is Pure-ftp?

Pure-FTPd is a free and lightweight FTP server developed for Unix-like OS including Linux, *BSD, and Solaris. As compared to Pro FTPd server,  Pure-FTPd is faster than Pro FTPd​ server

Moreover, PureFTPd is more secure then ProFTP.

How we fixed the common errors

At Bobcares, where we have more than a decade of expertise in managing servers, we see many customers face problems after setting up an FTP account on the DirectAdmin server.

Now, let’s see the major reasons for Pure-ftpd 530 error and how our Support Engineers fix the top errors.

Wrong ownership

Recently, one of our customers contacted us with a problem related to an FTP server. When he tried to log in using FileZilla FTP client and he constantly got the error as below.

Command: PASS *******
Response: 530 Login authentication failed
Error: Critical error
Error: Could not connect to server

On checking, our Support Engineers found that the ownership was incorrectly set for pureftp.passwd file.

So, we tweak the file permission as follows.

chown root:ftp /etc/pureftp.passwd

service pure-ftpd restart

This fixed the error

Bad password

Similarly, another customer had a problem as he could not log in to the FTP server. He was using the right username and password. When he tried to log in to the server, it showed an error like,

Response: 530 Login authentication failed
Error: Critical error

The password of the FTP account in the /etc/pureftp.passwd file was missing.

So, we took a backup pureftp.passwd first before making any changes and edited the pureftp.passwd file

After that, we run the following command to rebuild the pure-ftpd user database.

pure-pw mkdb

This is how we fixed the error.

[Need assistance to fix the error Pure-ftpd 530 login authentication failed on DirectAdmin? We’ll help you.]

Conclusion

In short, the error Pure-ftpd 530 login authentication failed on DirectAdmin can happen when incorrect ownership of pureftp.passwd file or password database corruption. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers fixed related errors.