Ok, i've done a ps -ef | grep 'ftpd' and nothign comes up, does this mean that my ftp daemon is not running? I don't see that it is running. I'm going thru some faqs and tutorials now.

You should only see the ftpd when someone is connected via ftp.

when you do attempt to connect via ftp to your server, do you get any error messages at all? or does the ftp client program just hang?

No, I get a definite FTP error, like I'm shut out, using the wrong password or login id. But I've tried multiple logons and passwords and verified there is nothing wrong with my username and pass, I can telnet fine using the logins, but FTP shuts me out completely. Thanks for helping me with this.

well wait a sec, if you can actually connect via ftp, if you are prompted to provide a user name and password, then your ftp server is running. what user are you trying to login in as? i might understand your situation wrong, but if you are actually able to connect, (even if you cant login) then the problem is almost definetly your ftpusers file. DO NOT remove root or any of the users on that list that are already there. use your regular login to log in via ftp and make sure that you did not add your login to that list. you said you get a 'definite FTP error' please post what it is. with the error we can almost definitly tell you what that problem is.

Hi Norsk, i'm still working on this problem, when I try to ftp to it i get a windows popup (i'm using exceed, hummingbird program as my ftp program) that says FTP Error: -2 Can't connect to Host FTP Server Message: None. I tinkered with the ftpusers file and this is what it now looks like:
/etc]# more ftpusers
root
bin
daemon
adm
lp
sync
shutdown
halt
mail
news
uucp
operator
games
nobody


Can the owner/permissions on the ftpusers file matter? I didn't install it, just tyring to figure out what happened to change things a couple of months ago, BUT it is owned by root of root group and only has rw for root owner only.

I can't ftp into the linux box, however, while logged into the unix box i can FTP to my unix boxes, so i can ftp out, but not into the linux servers. Not sure why. I had a problem of the linux boxes not showing up at all in my exceed broadcast box and finally figured out that our lan guy made some changes and I needed to put in the DNS info into our linux boxes and viola! they poppped up, but since I can't figure out what else he's changed, i'm not sure what has made it impossible to ftp into the linux boxes (unix servers are fine). And i've asked him, he says nothing changed. He said nothing tho last time and I proved him wrong on that. Nice guy tho but he tinkers with settings, trying to get things changed around to a 10. network instead of the 206. addresses we are using from our old isp. He says it is illegal for us to keep the 206 addresses, tho we are behind a firewall and router, they still work but then he makes changes and my subnetwork drops off and none of our developers can ftp to the linux servers anymroe. We have some configuration management issues we are working on. It all works, just not so pretty sometimes.