neo, also, a couple months ago the lan guy changed some settings, I had to go in and put in the ip of the machine he's using as a DNS server before the linux boxes would show up on our network, I used linuxconf, should I check somewhere else for DNS info? Which log files are you talking about? I looked in /var/logs

in boot.log everything, inet, succeeds starting up.

in maillog i see "My unqualified hostname (mickey) unknown, sleeping for retry. Unable to qualify my own domain name"

in messages I see "ftpusers file is either world writeable or not a normal file" and also "linuxconf-setup setting firewalling" but i specifically turned off the firewall and it shows as turned off in in linuxconf and:
un 3 08:09:37 mickey inetd[2975]: dtalk/tcp: unknown service
Jun 3 08:09:41 mickey inetd[2975]: /usr/sbin/nmbd: exit status 0x1
Jun 3 08:10:12 mickey last message repeated 31 times
Jun 3 08:10:19 mickey last message repeated 7 times
Jun 3 08:10:20 mickey inetd[2975]: netbios-ns/udp server failing (looping), service terminated
Jun 3 08:20:48 mickey inetd[2975]: /usr/sbin/nmbd: exit status 0x1
Jun 3 08:21:19 mickey last message repeated 30 times
Jun 3 08:21:27 mickey last message repeated 8 times
Jun 3 08:21:28 mickey inetd[2975]: netbios-ns/udp server failing (looping), service terminated
Jun 3 08:31:44 mickey inetd[2975]: /usr/sbin/nmbd: exit status 0x1
Jun 3 08:32:15 mickey last message repeated 31 times
Jun 3 08:32:22 mickey last message repeated 7 times
Jun 3 08:32:23 mickey inetd[2975]: netbios-ns/udp server failing (looping), service terminated

and in the secure log:

Jun 2 15:09:33 mickey in.comsat[3029]: connect from 127.0.0.1
Jun 2 15:15:07 mickey in.comsat[3526]: warning: /etc/hosts.allow, line 6: can't verify hostname: gethostbyname(localhost.localdomain) failed
Jun 2 15:15:07 mickey in.comsat[3526]: connect from 127.0.0.1
Jun 2 15:30:10 mickey in.comsat[3902]: warning: /etc/hosts.allow, line 6: can't verify hostname: gethostbyname(localhost.localdomain) failed
Jun 2 15:30:10 mickey in.comsat[3902]: connect from 127.0.0.1
Jun 3 07:01:01 mickey in.comsat[1460]: warning: /etc/hosts.allow, line 6: can't verify hostname: gethostbyname(localhost.localdomain) failed
Jun 3 07:01:01 mickey in.comsat[1460]: connect from 127.0.0.1

Yes, your problem corresponds to:

...as the logfile indicates.

You have two options:

(1) Fix these IP/DNS problems (best idea):

(2) Turn off the -a flag for ftp in inetd.conf.

(I suggest the first one...)

Leave your logfiles on, they seem to be working fine. Neo

Yes, after looking at your error messages, you need to concentrate on fixing your IP configuration.

I think you should insure that your forward and reverse DNS entries are correct, your domain and host is set up correctly, etc.

Your ftp process seems to be using the -a flag to authenticate the connection, but your IP configuration is broken, so many errors are being generated (most related to your IP problem).

I did a traceroute to your IP address. You have a routing loop:

Ok, this doesn't surprise me, but i'm not sure I can fix it. We used to be with one ISP (bitstreet) and were given a block of addresses for our servers which we programmed in and use to this day, even tho a year ago we switched providers and got a cisco router/firewall. The lan guy wants to switch ip's to a a 10.100.100.X scheme BUT we are waiting on some new equipment and didn't want to change one, cuz it's a very old fortran machine, but I can easily change the ips on my linux and unix and windows servers, however, the lan guy says he can't run the 206. (current servers AND all the workstations-which use DHCP) AND a 10. network together. I need a good book on networking, creation and admin from top down. So all these 206 addresses are really not ours, we are just running them internally, they actually belong to bitstreet and are really not what we are using, so that's a conflict. So my guess is that when I tell my ftp client to ftp to 206.144.142.247, it goes out externally to the net and tries that, not my internal network, hence the lockout.

Not sure if the routing problem is the core problem, but you have a lot of IP configuration problems that need to be solved. You might try turning off the -a option for ftpd in inetd.conf and see if that provides some temporarily relief until all your IP issues are fixed.