2020-06-10 11:23:17,974 XXXXX.fritz.box proftpd[5506]: fatal: unable to read configuration file '/etc/proftpd.conf': Permission denied

cannot test.

@jpbn, I installed this on a fresh F32 box and it worked straight away for me. Have you made any changes to the way the server is started? If you run rpm -V proftpd does it report anything other than /etc/ftpusers?

What do you get from ls -lZ /etc/proftpd.conf?

Here's what I get:

[root@tycho ~]# ls -lZ /etc/proftpd.conf 
-rw-r-----. 1 root root system_u:object_r:ftpd_etc_t:s0 6485 May 31 17:35 /etc/proftpd.conf
[root@tycho ~]# rpm -V proftpd
S.5....T.  c /etc/ftpusers
[root@tycho ~]# ls -lZ /etc/proftpd.conf 
-rw-r-----. 1 root root system_u:object_r:ftpd_etc_t:s0 6485 May 31 17:35 /etc/proftpd.conf

ux ~]$ rpm -V proftpd S.5....T. c /etc/ftpusers ..?...... c /etc/proftpd.conf ..?...... c /etc/proftpd/anonftp.conf ..?...... c /etc/proftpd/mod_ban.conf ..?...... c /etc/proftpd/mod_qos.conf ..?...... c /etc/proftpd/mod_tls.conf ..?...... c /etc/proftpd/modules.conf

nux ~]$ ls -lZ /etc/proftpd.conf -rw-r-----. 1 root root system_u:object_r:ftpd_etc_t:s0 6485 19 feb 15:39 /etc/proftpd.conf

~]$ proftpd 2020-06-10 14:41:38,236 linux.fritz.box proftpd[6513]: fatal: unable to read configuration file '/etc/proftpd.conf': Permission denied

~]$ sudo proftpd 2020-06-10 14:43:02,276 linux.fritz.box proftpd[6532]: processing configuration directory '/etc/proftpd/conf.d'

Keep asking for more if you need. regards

proftpd is a server, not a client. You start it by doing:

$ sudo systemctl start proftpd

You can check its status by doing:

$ sudo systemctl status proftpd

It looks like your last attempt at starting it via sudo worked, so you may need to kill that one if it's still running.

OK thank you for your comments. Works.