Cannot establish FTP connection to an SFTP server. Please select proper protocol

When you try to access your VPS through filezilla by putting the host as “ftp.mysite.com” instead of sftp://ipaddress you will get the error:

Cannot establish FTP connection to an SFTP server. Please select proper protocol


This means that you have not installed ftp on your VPS. While ftp is frowned upon and the best way is sftp (secure ftp), there are occasions when ftp is useful.

To install vsftpd (very secure ftp daemon) do the following:

(i) Install Vsftpd

# yum install vsftpd

(ii) Turn On Vsftpd Service

# chkconfig vsftpd on

(iii) Start the service:

# service vsftpd start
# netstat -tulpn | grep :21

(iv) Create FTP user

# adduser -c 'FTP USER lion' -m lion
# passwd lion

(you will be prompted for a password. It will taunt you that your password is useless. You can ignore and retype your pw.)

(v) Restart the FTP:

# service vsftpd restart

Now you will be able to access your VPS by inserting the domain name instead of only IP address

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