I can't get vsfptd working on Ubuntu 12.04.
my vsftpd.conf file looks like this, and I try to connect with a local user:
listen=YES anonymous_enable=NO local_enable=YES write_enable=YES dirmessage_enable=YES use_localtime=YES xferlog_enable=YES connect_from_port_20=YES secure_chroot_dir=/var/run/vsftpd/empty pam_service_name=vsftpd rsa_cert_file=/etc/ssl/private/vsftpd.pem Error message in FileZilla:
Response: 331 Please specify the password. Command: PASS **** Response: 530 Login incorrect. 7 Answers
Back up the config file before making a change;
sudo cp /etc/vsftpd.conf /etc/vsftpd.conf.back and then edit vsftpd.conf (with vi or nano)
nano /etc/vsftpd.conf Then make the following change
pam_service_name=ftp
Save your change and restart the ftp server (if you use nano hit CTRL+O & enter to save then CTRL+X to exit)
sudo service vsftpd restart Source: VSFTPD configuration problems with 12.04
9By default vsFTPd uses the file /etc/pam.d/vsftpd. This file by default requires FTP users to have a shell listed in /etc/shells and requires them not to be listed in /etc/ftpusers. If you check those 2 things your probably find what the problem is.
I did not need to change the vsftpd.conf. Only needed to make sure that a shell was set in my /etc/passwd file, that also was lited in /etc/shells.
So basically after useradd without a shell I needed to make sure the home directory was created and that the user had /bin/bash as it's shell.
I met this problem when I tried to login in with root and I just solved it.
vsftpd: version 3.0.2 Solution:
Check the following file (it contains list of users disallowed FTP access):
/etc/ftpusers 
In my case, I commented out root from the file, then it worked.
Please make some changes in /etc/vsftpd.conf:
pam_service_name=ftp If you want to set access by default /var/www directory for local user you can do that with below line:
local_root=/var/www Now save and exit.
Restart vsftpd server using:
sudo service vsftpd restart The suggested resolution did not work for me. I gave up on the ftp user, and switched my attention to the ubuntu user. I made sure there was a password associated with the ubuntu user.
I made sure to enable passive mode, and set local_enable=YES in the vsftpd.conf file.
I was able to authenticate just fine using the ubuntu account. And I successfully uploaded a large file to my Amazon Ubuntu FTP server. Clearly there was something amiss with the ftp user.
I used Ubuntu 18.04 and LetsEncrypt certificates for TLS encryption. What worked was changing the name of the pam_service_name=ftp the error I was getting in Filezilla was:
"GnuTLS error -15": An unexpected TLS packet was received. Reference: FTPS set up in ubuntu 18.04
