There are several reason why proftpd might not start.

1. Make sure that it's installed. (RedHat only)
You should be able to run
 

rpm -q proftpd

on RedHat and it should show you the current version. If it says that proftpd is not installed, then you must install it.
 

cd /usr/local/directadmin/scripts ./proftpd.sh

Watch for errors.

One common problem is another conflicting ftp daemon. Remove the other ftp daemon
 

rpm -e --nodeps other-ftp

and then run ./proftpd.sh again.

2. Ensure IP's are setup correctly
a) make sure that the server ip is setup with the hostname in the /etc/hosts file.
b) make sure that the server ip is *not* in the /etc/proftpd.vhosts.conf as a VirtualHost


Once you've got it setup and installed restart it by running:

Redhat:

 

service proftpd restart

FreeBSD:

 

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/proftpd restart

 

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