Win 8 SFTP drive suddenly not working after six months of working perfectly. Can log into console fine. **TEMP** account can SFTP fine

Question

Update: I did the steps recommended by Digital Ocean support (at the bottom) and posted a followup: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/179163/how-to-get-sftp-on-ubuntu-working-again-should-i-try-to-fix-it-or-reinstall

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For the first time since creating my Digital Ocean server, I am getting a "connection refused" error when trying to connect to my with either SFTP Net Drive (so I can map it as a lettered drive on my Windows machine), WebDrive (and SFTP Net Drive competitor), or FileZilla. I can connect with the console just fine.

I also created a new temp account, which __CAN__ sftp to the same machine just fine.

I've updated and restarted by the server and my Windows machine, and re-installed SFTP Net Drive, but it still fails.

No configuration has changed at all, on either machine. I am an Ubuntu/Bash newbie. I've been playing around with aliases and alias-like functions in my .bashrc (like here, here, here, and here, but nothing I can fathom that would affect this. I haven't changed any other configuration at all. I don't know how to yet.

On SFTP Net Drive Free, here's the main screen:

When I attempt to connect:

According to their website, this means SSH_ERROR_CONNECTION_CLOSED.

Detailed configuration (again, unchanged since August):

On WebDrive it's the same thing: "Winsock Error: WSAECONNREFUSED (10061)". This message is the same for every possible option:

Attempting to connect via FileZilla with non-secure FTP (I changed my real ip to 123.45.67.891. Forgive me if it's not a valid one):

Status: Connecting to 123.45.67.891:22...
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response: SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_6.6.1p1 Ubuntu-2ubuntu2
Error: Cannot establish FTP connection to an SFTP server. Please select proper protocol.
Error: Critical error: Could not connect to server

My Setup:

With SFTP:

Status: Connecting to 123.45.67.891...
Response: fzSftp started
Command: open "myusername@123.45.67.891" 22
Command: Pass: ************
Status: Connected to 123.45.67.891
Error: Connection timed out
Error: Could not connect to server

It hangs at the "Connected to 123.45.67.891" line, and then times out. It never actually connects.

Using FTP with "Require explicit FTP over TLS":

Status: Connecting to 123.45.67.891:990...
Status: Connection attempt failed with "ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server".
Error: Could not connect to server

Same result with "implicit"

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$ ping 123.45.67.891

Pinging 123.45.67.891 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 123.45.67.891: bytes=32 time=21ms TTL=251
Reply from 123.45.67.891: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=251
Reply from 123.45.67.891: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=251
Reply from 123.45.67.891: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=251

Ping statistics for 123.45.67.891:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 22ms

$ tracert 123.45.67.891

Tracing route to originaldjangster.com [123.45.67.891]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Wireless_Broadband_Router.home [192.168.1.1]
2 7 ms 7 ms 8 ms L100.CMDNNJ-VFTTP-20.verizon-gni.net [71.188.123.1]
3 12 ms 11 ms 14 ms G0-1-3-2.CMDNNJ-LCR-22.verizon-gni.net [100.41.201.86]
4 33 ms 12 ms 16 ms xe-9-1-2-0.NY5030-BB-RTR2.verizon-gni.net [130.81.209.144]
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 12 ms 16 ms 17 ms 2.ae0.XT2.NYC4.ALTER.NET [140.222.227.27]
7 23 ms 20 ms 24 ms TenGigE-7-0-3.GW5.NYC4.ALTER.NET [152.63.18.190]
8 12 ms 17 ms 15 ms teliasonera-gw.customer.alter.net [152.179.163.178]
9 14 ms 17 ms 18 ms nyk-b6-link.telia.net [213.155.131.117]
10 16 ms 16 ms 17 ms digitalocean-ic-306491-nyk-b5.c.telia.net [62.115.44.242]
11 20 ms 20 ms 11 ms 192.241.164.242
12 26 ms 16 ms 17 ms originaldjangster.com [123.45.67.891]

After talking with Digital Ocean, they say they can't replicate anything, and they're not allowed to login directly with a temp account I've created for temp (nor my actual account with a temp password). They've suggested I try these (in their words, "very dated") steps.

I will, and I will update this question with the results. But I'm exhausted and I need to pick up my kid from school.

Any clues in what I've written so far? I am completly stuck, and everything I need to do is via SFTP.

Here's the full support thread with Digital Ocean.

I was told that SFTP was "beatiful or a nightmare". Now I guess I understand.

Answer 1

It turns out that SFTP crashes if any text is output to the console. I added an echo to my ~/.bashrc, which killed it.

I've added the following to the very top of .bashrc:

:<<COMMENT
  SFTP breaks if any thing is output to the shell, and it doesn't need
  anything in .bashrc anyway.

  Description of the following line of code: "If file descriptor 0, or 
  'the input' is connected to a terminal, which is true when you do: 
     ssh yourhost 
  but not when you do:
     ssh yourhost bash -s < script # here it's connected to 'script', a file"

  See
  - https://serverfault.com/questions/485487/use-bashrc-without-breaking-sftp
  - http://www.openssh.com/faq.html#2.9
COMMENT
[ -t 0 ] || return

In addition, I've moved the echo, which I intended as a login intro message, to /etc/motd, as described in this answer

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Thanks to dualbus and ishikawa on #bash.

Answer 2

I read through the thread and you have a mix of FTP, FTP/S, and SFTP examples all trying to connect to the same server on the same port. It's important to keep in mind that SFTP, FTP/S, and FTP are all very different, and run on different ports.

SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol over SSH encryption) runs on port 22 usually and is not the same as FTP/S. FTP/S (File Transfer Protocol (RFC959) over SSL/TLS encryption) typically runs on port 990 or port 21 (if using AUTH SSL/TLS).

If your server is SFTP, then you want to configure your SFTP client, we like WebDrive :), in SFTP mode. Once you have the protocol set up, verify that your username and password are correct.

If you don't get that far, or if you get a Handshake Failure, it's possible that the client and server cannot negotiate a common set of Ciphers & Macs. There has been a trend recently to move away from CBC based ciphers and move over to more secure CTR based ciphers. If your SFTP client is configured to use only AES+CBC it's possible that the server no longer accepts those and you'll need to update your SFTP client to use any CTR ciphers instead....check with your server Admin to see what they support.

WRT WebDrive, if you still have trouble connecting, please submit a ticket to our helpdesk at srthelpdesk.com and someone will help you out asap.