vsftpd service will not start for 14.04

Question

I've been looking for solutions for awhile and I haven't found one that works for me. I'm new enough to linux that I'm not sure where else to turn. I can't seem to get the service to start. Any suggestions? Thank you!

This command

ls -l /etc/init.d

does not show that vsftpd is available. It's not listed at all.

When I run

sudo service vsftpd start

I get:

vsftpd start/pre-start, process 7639

or -

sudo service vsftpd start --system

I get:

vsftpd start/pre-start, process 7691

or -

sudo service vsftpd status I get: vsftpd stop/waiting

Answer 1

i also had same problem on Ubuntu 14.04, i figured out there is another service listening on port 21

# netstat -ltnp | grep ':21'

it shows:

tcp    0      0 0.0.0.0:21  0.0.0.0:*    LISTEN      1956/pure-ftpd (SER
tcp6   0      0 :::21       :::*         LISTEN      1956/pure-ftpd (SER

stop pure-ftpd service by:

#service pure-ftpd stop

then i manage to remove vsftpd with --purge option

#apt-get remove --purge vsftpd

then install it again

#apt-get install vsftpd

and now vsftpd runs great

#ps ax grep vsftpd
6914 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/sbin/vsftpd
7942 pts/4    S+     0:00 grep --color=auto vsftpd