Here are a few simple steps to enable a basic FTP server on Solaris 10.

Edit /etc/ftpd/ftpusers  and comment out “root”. This should only be done for testing purposes. After FTP is functioning as expected, edit this file and remove the comment. Restart the FTP server.

Check if FTP server is already active:

inetadm |grep -i ftp

Enable FTP server if not already active:

svcadm enable svc:/network/ftp:default ; svcadm enable ftp

Disable TCP wrappers for FTP authentication:

inetadm -m  svc:/network/ftp:default tcp_wrappers=FALSE

Check on the status of FTP server processes and network sockets:

grep -i ftp /etc/services
netstat -an |grep -i *.21

Expected output:

root@nfsmaster# grep -i ftp /etc/services
ftp-data        20/tcp
ftp             21/tcp
tftp            69/udp
root@nfsmaster# netstat -an |grep -i *.21
      *.21                 *.*                0      0 49152      0 LISTEN
      *.21                              *.*                             0      0 49152      0 LISTEN