Zak Wer wrote:
> 
> And these messages appear on the BSD box every 1o
> minutes or so:
> May 23 11:41:47 franken inetd[414]: ntalk/udp: bind:
> Address already in use
> May 23 11:41:47 franken inetd[414]: ftp/tcp: bind:
> Address already in use

I would take inetd at its word: it sounds like vsftpd and ntalk are
contending for the same port.  Why this should be, I don't know.  Is ntalk
enabled in inetd.conf?  Does the situation improve if you disable it? 
What if you switch from vsftpd to ftpd (just to isolate the problem)?  

Another avenue: perhaps fstat(1) shows a process using port 20/21?  

HTH.

--jkl