Connection refused

[Alex Neuman van der Hans]

>>> It was working fine yesterday, but now connections are no longer 
>>> allowed.

Exactly *what* do you mean by connections are no longer allowed? Do you 
mean that if you, say, "telnet yourmailserver.com 25" you get a message 
saying "Connection not allowed"?

>>> Everything is being deferred.  Any ideas?

Exactly *what* do you mean by everything is being deferred? Do you mean 
that if you, for example, check /var/log/maillog, you get something like:

Jan 24 10:16:05 yourmailserver sendmail[22098]: k0OFFoEd022891: 
from=<whoever at whatever.com>, size=0, class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=SMTP, 
daemon=MTA-v6, relay=... never mind, I'm deferring everything! MWAHAHAHAH!!!