Using loopback interface...
 

I am trying to set up an Imap server, using dovecot - as described for newbies here
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/275

Having gone through all the steps, I try to connect on the loopback interface using:

mutt -f imap://myname@localhost/Mail

..but get the message: Could not connect to localhost. Connection refused

I suspect I have disabled something simple during a recent security crusade after setting up ssh access from work to home. Pinging localhost works fine. What have I done !!

you probably don't have anything listen on the imap port internally. is dovecot running? is it explicitly set to respond to eth0 only?

Hmm,

Dovecot is definitely running, and I have tried binding the imap listening to 'localhost', '127.0.0.1' and * (for all IPV4 addresses) in dovecot.conf

No joy!