» IT tipps and howto's

Problem with proftpd: IPv6 getaddrinfo 'domain.com' error: Name or service not known

Last Update: 10.11.2008

If you experience the following warning message when you try to start or restart proftpd:

/etc/init.d/proftpd restart
Stopping ftp server: proftpd.
Starting ftp server: proftpd - IPv6 getaddrinfo 'domain.com' error: Name or service not known

Although you get this warning or error message, proftpd will run. The message simply indicates a problem with the IP protocol version 6 which is not correctly configured. If your machine only runs on IPv4 (e.g. 172.10.10.3) you can simply add the following line into your proftpd config file:

vi /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf
UseIPv6 off

Save the changes you made and restart proftpd, you won't get this error message anymore.

If your machine uses IPv6 (e.g. 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334, look in your /etc/hosts) then you should configure your proftpd so it accepts IPv6. I haven't done this myself so I have no clue what hints to give you but I found the following howto which seems to be working according to user responses: http://forums.theplanet.com/index.php?showtopic=87129&st=0&p=573149&#entry573149. Good luck.