Hi guys, I'm here at work and I was connected to a LAMP server we have downstairs using putty. I went to lunch for 1 hour and left the connection on, and when I came back from lunch the connection was timed out. Now when I try to connect again I get: "Network error: Connection refused". Why is this happening to me???!! I'm very new to this SSH thing. I did a search in google and I got this:

"This error means that the network connection PuTTY tried to make to your server was rejected by the server. Usually this happens because the server does not provide the service which PuTTY is trying to access.

Check that you are connecting with the correct protocol (SSH, Telnet or Rlogin), and check that the port number is correct. If that fails, consult the administrator of your server."

I checked and I'm connecting with the correct protocol (SSH) and I check the port number which is the same I was using before. I did a restart: sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart and nothing.
Please help me guys,

Thanks

There might be any problem. If I were at your place, I would do the following -
1) Make sure that I can ping the remote machine
2) Check if there's firewall blocking the port on which ssh runs on both machines. If connecting via a proxy server, check if it's configuration has been changed.
3) Check if sshd is running or not on server
4) Check if I can connect to ssh server from any other machine.
5) Check if I can connect to the ssh server from the local machine.6) Check if any any changes have been made to

1) Yes I can ping to the remote machine.
2) I spoke with the network administrator and he says that the configuration has NOT been change. I was trying to use the command: "nmap -sT -O localhost", "nmap" and "nmap -vvv localhost" to scan for open ports, but I got command not found. What is the command for this purpose? I'm using Ubuntu.

3) I tried the command: "ps -A | grep ssh" and I got no output, nothing

4) No I can NOT connect to the ssh server from any other machine.

5) I tried to connect to the server from the local machine by using the code:
"ssh user@localhost -p portnumber" and I got: "Network error: Connection refused".

6) I checked for changes in /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny and no changes have been made.

Thanks for your help

It seems that somehow your ssh daemon stopped (maybe a crash/segfault/any other of a number of causes). On some systems it is supposed to respawn. On some it isn't. Your best plan is to ask the sysadmin to restart the ssh server (depending on your system, probably something like `/etc/init.d/sshd start').

Hello "cucolin@",
As "osor" said, please try running the command and see if gives any output. The ssh server is not running on the server so, try running it using the command.