OES FTP (pure-ftpd) -- session disconnects after user enters password

OES FTP is running with /etc/pure-ftpd/pure-ftpd.conf set with:

 

remote_server yes

EnableRemoteHomeDirectory yes

Users can form a TCP connection to the OES FTP server and can submit a username and password, but then they are disconnected.  The error at the client end is not informative, and no error is logged at the server side  by pure-ftpd.

Edit the nds.conf file, usually found at /etc/opt/novell/eDirectory/conf/nds.conf.

 

Find the "n4u.server.interfaces" line.  Make sure it contains the local IP address of this machine, plus port number, in the format:

 

 

(where 10.1.2.3 is replaced by the actual IP address).

 

In some rare cases, this line may be appearing without the address, and is set only to "@524".

 

Then restart nds with:  rcndsd restart

 

If "EnableRemoteHomeDirectory" is set to "yes", then immediately after authenticating a user, OES FTP will attempt an LDAP call into eDirectory to look up the user's NCP home directory.  Before making this call, it executes ndsconfig and checks the first IP address set by n4u.server.interfaces.  It will sent the LDAP call to that address.

 

If an IP address is not set, this operation will fail without logging a reason and the session will end.

 

It is conceivable that this same symptom (disconnecting after password is entered, without a helpful error logged) might happen for other reasons also.   This document covers only one possible cause.