Nobody user + XAMPP and ProFTPD

Question

Nobody user + XAMPP and ProFTPD

I'm trying to set up a development server on my iMac running Leopard to test a website I'm developing. I have experience doing this on Unix, and I installed XAMPP to set it up.

XAMPP works fine, but ProFTPD seemed to have a password for the nobody user already set. I'd like to know what the default password for the nobody account is, or if anyone knows how to force the password for nobody to change either on the computer or ProFTPD. I can't install Joomla without FTP access, so this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dylan

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Jan 25, 2009 1:27 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 25, 2009 7:36 PM in response to Patrick Nugent

I used sudo passwd nobody to change the password for the nobody user account.

Unfortunately, the password for the nobody user account and the nobody FTP access on XAMPP were not the same. I again tried ./mampp security to change the FTP password, but it still didn't work:

Macintosh:~ dylan$ sudo /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/mampp security
XAMPP: Quick security check...
XAMPP: Your XAMPP pages are secured by a password.
XAMPP: Do you want to change the password anyway? [no]
XAMPP: MySQL is not accessable via network. Good.
XAMPP: MySQL has a root passwort set. Fine! 🙂
XAMPP: ProFTPD has a new FTP password. Great!
XAMPP: Do you want to change the password anyway? [no] yes
XAMPP: Password:
XAMPP: Password (again):
XAMPP: Reload ProFTPD...
XAMPP: Done.
Macintosh:~ dylan$ ftp
ftp> open localhost
Trying ::1...
ftp: connect to address ::1: Connection refused
Trying fe80::1%lo0...
ftp: connect to address fe80::1%lo0: Unknown error: 0
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
220 ProFTPD 1.3.1 Server (ProFTPD Default Installation) [127.0.0.1]
Name (localhost:dylan): nobody
331 Password required for nobody
Password:
530 Login incorrect.
ftp: Login failed.
ftp>

Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong here? Perhaps XAMPP is using a different username?

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Answer 2

Jan 25, 2009 8:12 PM in response to Patrick Nugent

I found the password in a config file for ProFTPD. Looks like it was scrambled, I changed it. "+ UserPassword nobody <password>" is what the line reads now, it used to read "+ UserPassword nobody <scrambled characters>". Rebooted ProFTPD, and still it's not working.

It's clear to me that this part of XAMPP is not working. Setting the password to "xampp" (the default) here doesn't light the security flag, using the security system to reset the password fails, the scrambled characters were not any of the passwords I had tried to set, and so forth. So I'm planning on finding another FTP program to install and using that instead.

The problem I now have is that I see no reason for user "nobody" to have a password. Anyone know how to remove the password I previously set with sudo passwd nobody?

Further, if anyone understands what might be going on here, it would be greatly appreciated: Xampp seems to think it's communicating with ProFTPD's nobody account fine.

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