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FTP could not read reply from control connection

I set up an anonymous vsftpd server on a system running Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4. When I connect to the FTP server with a command-line client or a browser, I can change directories and list the files with their timestamps and sizes, but when I try to download a file, I get this error message:

"Could not read reply from control connection -- timed out.
get README: timed out while waiting for server response."

This happens for any file I try to download. vsftpd is running as a stand-alone program, not using inetd. I tried
commenting out connect_from_port_20 in the config file, but I got the same error. I've attached my vsftpd.conf file, adding a .txt extension so that Experts Exchange will alllow it.
vsftpd.conf.txt

omarfarid

This could be a firewall issue. Do you have ports 20 and 21 tcp open?

abalonia

ASKER

Yes, the firewall is accepting packets to ports 20 and 21.

omarfarid

What about iptables ?

abalonia

ASKER

Iptables is the firewall. The server is not behind a hardware firewall.

abalonia

ASKER

Iptables has these two rules:

ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:21
ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:20

omarfarid

What about the permissions on the remote file or dir?

abalonia

ASKER

The file on the FTP server is like /misc/ftp/pub/README. /misc/ftp, /misc/ftp/pub, and the README file are all world-readable, and the directories are world-executable. /misc/ftp is NFS mounted from another server.

abalonia

ASKER

When I set vsftpd to look at /var/ftp instead, downloading files worked. But when I mounted the NFS share on /var/ftp/pub, downloading files resulted in the same error. It seems that vsftpd doesn't like NFS, even when the permissions are all world-readable and executable.

omarfarid

What perms are set on the NFS share and who is the owner of the files / folders?

Under what user id your vsftpd runs?

abalonia

ASKER

The main vsftpd process runs as root. When I connect from an FTP client, a child process starts that runs as "nobody", and another child process starts as "ftp". The NFS share belongs to another local user and is set to world-readable permissions. A local directory that belongs to the same user is served out successfulyy by vsftpd.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

abalonia

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