ProFTP Offline After Changing User Name (WHM/cPanel).

WHM 11.32.3 (build 19)
CENTOS 5.8 x86_64 xenpv
ProFTPD Version 1.3.4

I was required to change the user name on an existing cPanel account in WHM.

I did this via Modify Account and all seemed well.

I then noticed that ProFTP had gone offline.

Attempting to restart from WHM gave the following:

ftpserver has failed, please contact the sysadmin.

So, checking Messages for proftpd:

root@s27 [~]# cat /var/log/messages | grep proftpd

The following error was found:

Jun 9 19:39:01 s27 proftpd[17985]: Fatal: AuthUserFile: unable to use relative path for AuthUserFile '\/etc\/proftpd/username'. on line 187 of '/etc/proftpd.conf'

When the user name was changed, backward slashes were added to the AuthUserFile path (AuthUserFile \/etc\/proftpd/username).

Opening proftp.conf in vi:

<VirtualHost 1.2.3.4>
  ServerName ftp.domain.com
  AuthUserFile \/etc\/proftpd/username
  MaxClients 3 "Sorry, this ftp server has reached its maximum user count (%m).  Please try again later"
  DirFakeGroup On ftpgroup
  DirFakeUser On ftpuser
  DefaultRoot ~<IfModule mod_tls.c>
      TLSEngine on
      TLSRequired off
      TLSRSACertificateFile /etc/ftpd-rsa.pem
      TLSRSACertificateKeyFile /etc/ftpd-rsa-key.pem
      TLSVerifyClient off
      TLSCipherSuite HIGH:MEDIUM:+TLSv1:!SSLv2:+SSLv3</IfModule><Directory />
    AllowOverwrite                on
    HideGroup wheel
    HideUser root</Directory><Anonymous /home/securelo/public_ftp>
    UseFtpUsers                   on
    RequireValidShell             off
    UseFtpUsers                   on
    RequireValidShell             off
    User                          ftp
    Group                         ftp
    UserAlias                     anonymous ftp
    DisplayLogin                  welcome.msg
    # DisplayChdir                  .message true<Limit WRITE>
      DenyAll</Limit><Directory incoming><Limit STOR>
        AllowAll</Limit><Limit WRITE READ>
        DenyAll</Limit></Directory></Anonymous></VirtualHost>

I removed the backward slashes from the AuthUserFile path (\/etc\/proftpd/username) and was able to start ProFTP.

Odd.

HTH someone else....