Vsftpd 530 Permission denied: Causes & Solutions

Vsftpd 530 Permission denied error is no longer a problem with Bobcares by your side.

At Bobcares, we offer solutions for every query, big and small, as a part of our Server Management Service.

Let’s take a look at how our Support Team recently helped a customer how to resolve the vsftpd 530 Permission denied error.

What is vsftpd 530 Permission denied error?

If you have a newly installed vsftp server that is not accessible by some users, you have come to the right place. You may also come across the following error:

# service vsftpd status
vsftpd (pid 5806) is running...
# ftp localhost
Connected to localhost.localdomain.
220 (vsFTPd 2.0.5)
530 Please login with USER and PASS.
KERBEROS_V4 rejected as an authentication type
Name (localhost:oracle): user
530 Permission denied.
Login failed.

According to our Support Techs, this error pops up when the parameters userlist_enable and userlist_deny in the /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf is set to YES. Furthermore, the “530 Permission denied” error does not prompt for a password.

If userlist_enable is set to YES, vsftpd will load usernames to the /etc/vsftpd/userlist_file file. In case a user attempts to log in via a name on this file, they are denied access before they are prompted for a password.

Interestingly, this is a good way to prevent cleartext passwords from being transmitted. It also prompts the examination of userlist_deny. In fact, setting this parameter to NO causes users to be able to log in even if they are in the /etc/vsftpd/userlist_file file.

How to allow VSFTP server local user to login

1. First, we have to edit the /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf file and set userlist_enable to YES and userlist_deny to NO with the following commands:

   # vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf 
   userlist_enable=YES 
   userlist_deny=NO
2. Next, we will add the username to the /etc/vsftpd/user_list file as seen below:

   # cat /etc/vsftpd/user_list 
   username1
3. Then, we will add all the users who are not allowed to ftp in the /etc/vsftpd/ftpusers file as seen below:

   # cat ftpusers 
   # Users that are not allowed to login via ftp 
   root 
   bin 
   daemon 
   adm 
   lp 
   sync 
   shutdown 
   halt 
   news
   mail 
   uucp 
   games 
   operator 
   
4. After that, we have to restart vsftpd with the following command:

   # service vsftpd restart
5. Now, we will try ftp once more with the user username1:

   $ ftp localhost 
   Connected to localhost.localdomain. 
   220 (vsFTPd 2.0.5) 
   530 Please login with USER and PASS. 
   530 Please login with USER and PASS. 
   KERBEROS_V4 rejected as an authentication type 
   Name (localhost:root): username1
   331 Please specify the password. 
   Password: 
   230 Login successful. 
   Remote system type is UNIX. 
   Using binary mode to transfer files. 
   ftp>
6. If we try via a disallowed user id, for instance, root, we will get the following output:

   # ftp localhost 
   Connected to localhost.localdomain. 
   220 (vsFTPd 2.0.5) 
   530 Please login with USER and PASS. 
   530 Please login with USER and PASS. 
   KERBEROS_V4 rejected as an authentication type 
   Name (localhost:root): root 
   530 Permission denied. 
   Login failed. 
   ftp>

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Conclusion

To conclude, the skilled Support Engineers at Bobcares demonstrated how to deal with vsftpd 530 Permission denied error.