How to start / stop proftpd

Use netstat to see what process is holding port 21:

# netstat -tnlp

And from there you can use RPM to see what package owns the file to stop it and remove it from init.d.

If your server has Plesk ProFTPD daemon is xinetd. Use

/etc/init.d/xinetd restart

To stop proftpd

/sbin/service proftpd stop

to stop it from starting with the system

/sbin/chkconfig proftpd off 

to start proftpd with the system

/sbin/chkconfig proftpd on

to manually start proftpd

/sbin/service proftpd start

and to restart it

/sbin/service proftpd restart