vsftpd in RHL 8.0 runs out of xinetd vsftpd in beta5 is instead configured to run by a SysV init script (/etc/init.d/vsftpd) In addition, vsftpd configuration has been modified to accomodate virtual hosts more readily. In RHL 8.0, the config file for vsftpd was /etc/vsftpd.conf, and this is still what the man page and other vsftpd documentation in beta5 claim is the config file. However, in beta5 the config file is actually /etc/vsftpd/*.conf (by default, just /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf), so that different configs can be created for each virtual host. All of this needs to be mentioned in the RELEASE_NOTES -- it's a significant change in how the service is started, stopped, and configured
Unfortunately, your report came in too late to make it into the Red Hat Linux 9 release notes, so I'm going to close this as WONTFIX. If it is any consolation, the engineer that neglected to tell me about this change has received 50 lashes with a wet noodle... :-)