SOLVED Pure-FTPD + FileZilla partial uploads get deleted when client's IP changes

[Benjamin D.]

Not sure if this fits in cPanel forums, but maybe somebody can at least try and provide some workaround to this.

We're using Pure-FTPD and over the last 2 years, we noticed a very frustrating behavior. In FileZilla client, whenever somebody uploads a (big) file, the upload immediately gets renamed to some serial number (e.g.: .pureftpd-upload.4bca436d.15.2455.1bb2fab2) but it frequently happens that mid-way thru the upload, the client's IP address changes. What happens next is one of the 2 things:

1) The file gets re-uploaded from scratch.

2) The file upload resumes.

More often than not, scenario #1 happens. If the client refreshes the directory in FileZilla client, it seems like the serial-named file (e.g.: .pureftpd-upload.4bca436d.15.2455.1bb2fab2) gets erased or an attempt to rename it back to the normal file name fails and the file gets deleted!

This is becoming a very aggravating issue because some dump files are as big as 4GB and on sh*tty internet access such as 800kbps upload, this takes 1.5 day! Imagine this happening twice for the same file and now it takes 3 days to finish the upload (if the IP address does not change again, which it does on ASDL connections almost every day) !

Anything that can be done to stop this from happening? (inb4 set a cron job in cPanel to make a copy of the .pureftpd-upload.* files every hour)

Would it work better under Pro-FTPD ?

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @Benjamin D.

This is specific to the fact that the file upload by pureftpd is a tmp file until the upload completes - this is an unchangeable behavior of PureFTPd. The tmp file is created to track progress. Does the same behavior occur when using proftpd? Based on these circumstances: poor internet connection and dynamic IP addresses there's really not a lot cPanel has control of in this respect.

 

[Benjamin D.]

Yes I know, but I was considering using ProFTPd instead, but I'm not sure if the same behavior will happen and I also have some clients using out of cPanel FTP users, which cPanel cannot offer to us at the moment. It's a combination of a master R/W user made outside of cPanel and a bunch of R/O users managed by cPanel and I fear it will break everything if I switch to ProFTPd.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @Benjamin D.

It may be worth looking further into:
FTP Server Selection - Version 74 Documentation - cPanel Documentation
FTP FAQ - Version 74 Documentation - cPanel Documentation
The ProFTPD Project: Project Documentation

Though it may be that it's not possible to use due to your specific configurations. Unfortunately, in your situation, your specific issues aren't items we actually have control over.

 

[Benjamin D.]

Well, I've set a cron job to duplicate on the side uploads bigger than 1GB every hour, so next time some sh*tty DSL disconnection happens, at least we'll be able to roll back easily. Thanks, you can close this thread.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @Benjamin D.

I'm glad you found a workaround. Thank you for sharing it. I'll mark this as solved but we don't typically close threads.

Thanks!