For some stupid reason I wasn’t able to connect to my VPS with the ftp account.  I am running openVZ. Checking the log I discovered this entry.

Feb 11 17:23:15 sarnworld xinetd[21875]: START: ftp pid=22305 from=thisismyiphere
Feb 11 17:23:15 sarnworld pure-ftpd: (?@?) [ERROR] Unable to switch capabilities : Operation not permitted
Feb 11 17:23:15 sarnworld xinetd[21875]: EXIT: ftp status=252 pid=22305 duration=0(sec)

Well googling for operation not permitted sent me to this link.

http://forum.openvz.org/index.php?&t=msg&goto=4203

Stopping the VM and then running the following command fixed the issue for me.

damn you pure-ftp and openvz for being weaksauce.

 
VPSID=110
for CAP in CHOWN DAC_READ_SEARCH SETGID SETUID NET_BIND_SERVICE NET_ADMIN SYS_CHROOT SYS_NICE CHOWN DAC_READ_SEARCH SETGID SETUID NET_BIND_SERVICE NET_ADMIN SYS_CHROOT SYS_NICE
do
vzctl set $VPSID --capability ${CAP}:on --save
done