ssh: "connection refused by tcp wrapper"

[Soren Andersen <somian@adelphia.net>]

Hello, Debian Folk,

Q regarding use of ssh on Debian follows.

I have got my sshd not responding to attempts to connect, and I have
examined every parameter, variable, issue and factor I can think of. I
am at my wit's end.

As per the Subject: line, if I watch sshd in VERBOSE mode (man sshd), I
find that the daemon is saying it is killing the connection because
"connection refused by tcp wrapper". On the other end, that is of course
the client end, we see that the connection gets started (elsewise
there'd be not any log entry at all on the server side) but then gets
closed by the remote system (the server).

I am trying to connect using v2 of SSH, and can go the other direction
(that is, the machine that acts as the server in this problematical
scenario can be where I run the client, and if so I have no trouble at
all making the session).

I am using Woody/3.0r1 on both systems, and on the host system in
question am running iptables-based firewalling that is configured to
ALLOW incoming ("-m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED,RELATED") tcp and udp
packets on the ssh port (man, I really sort of sound like I know what i
am talking about, huh? ;-)

Ideas? What's "tcp-wrapper" and why is it messing up my ssh-ing?

   Thanks!
    Soren Andersen
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