hosts.allow/hosts.deny question

[Raphael Crawford-Marks <raphaelc@user-error.net>]

I posted a while back about not being able to establish telnet,ssh or smtp
connections from outside my LAN to my box running Potato.  This problem
appeared rather suddenly after having run fine for several months.  Since
then a friend of mine in a different state told me that he could connect
via telnet and ssh just fine.  So I looked into my hosts.allow and
hosts.deny files.  They looked ok, except for this reference to a
leafnode, which I hadn't seen before.  There was nothing about it in the
manpages.  This machine has two NIC's in it and is doing IPMasquerding.

When I try to ssh, I get this message:

ssh_exchange_identification: connection closed by remote host.

Here are my hosts.allow and hosts.deny files.  Please let me know if
there's something wrong with it.

# /etc/hosts.allow: list of hosts that are allowed to access the system.
#                   See the manual pages hosts_access(5), hosts_options(5)
#                   and /usr/doc/netbase/portmapper.txt.gz
#
# Example:    ALL: LOCAL @some_netgroup
#             ALL: .foobar.edu EXCEPT terminalserver.foobar.edu
#
# If you're going to protect the portmapper use the name "portmap" for the
# daemon name. Remember that you can only use the keyword "ALL" and IP
# addresses (NOT host or domain names) for the portmapper. See portmap(8)
# and /usr/doc/netbase/portmapper.txt.gz for further information.
#
#-- leafnode begin
leafnode: 127.0.0.1
#-- leafnode end


# /etc/hosts.deny: list of hosts that are _not_ allowed to access the system.
#                  See the manual pages hosts_access(5), hosts_options(5)
#                  and /usr/doc/netbase/portmapper.txt.gz
#
# Example:    ALL: some.host.name, .some.domain
#             ALL EXCEPT in.fingerd: other.host.name, .other.domain
#
# If you're going to protect the portmapper use the name "portmap" for the
# daemon name. Remember that you can only use the keyword "ALL" and IP
# addresses (NOT host or domain names) for the portmapper. See portmap(8)
# and /usr/doc/netbase/portmapper.txt.gz for further information.
#
# The PARANOID wildcard matches any host whose name does not match its
# address.
ALL: PARANOID
#-- leafnode begin
leafnode: ALL
#-- leafnode end



Please cc: me in the reply, as I am not subscribed to the list.

Thanks,

Raphael