Secure FTP on UNIX/Irix based systems

Im tring to set up a Secure (passworded) FTP site on my SGI Irix 6.5 server.(Irix is a Unix based system)everytime I try to set a password for a new directory or user I get an unexpected failure. password file (s) unchanged. Ive been following SGI tech notes on how to do this but its not working? What am I missing? Do I need to have an anonymous ftp first? Anyone ever run into this problem?