connecting to *nix smaugFuss

Hi all,
after reading through some similar forum posts I'm amazed by how many problems people seem to have with SmaugFuss- doesn't that last part stand for "fixed up source code?" :P
Erm, anyway, I got Smaug16Fuss running on my server, but can't connect to it. After running ../src/smaug OR ../src/startup I get

(success messages up here cut for brevity)
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: Loading Immortal Hosts
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: Done.
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: Loading Projects
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: Loading Morphs
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: Done.
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: Initializing socket
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: IMC: Loading IMC2 command table...
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: IMC: Loading IMC2 network data...
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: IMC: Loading IMC2 help file...
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: IMC: Loading IMC2 color table...
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: IMC: IMC2 network data loaded. Autoconnect not set. IMC2 will need to be connected manually.
Tue May 2 18:49:34 2006 :: (Name Not Set) ready on port 4444.


But, when I try to connect using telnet://user.domain.net:4444 the telnet prompt only appears for a brief second then disappears.
I checked my running processes, and Smaug is there, so it is running. I just wonder if that IMC2 message at the bottom could be the culprit. If not, what should I look into to fix my connection issues?

Connection problems to SmaugFUSS are almost never a problem with the source code; almost invariably they are due to setup errors.

In your case, you should make sure that the server firewall is allowing connections to port 4444. What you can do is from the prompt on the server type: "telnet localhost 4444". If that succeeds, then the firewall is almost certainly the culprit.

What error do you get on connection/disconnect? That would help as well.

And as Ksilyan, there are virtually no connection issues in the FUSS sourcecode.

Kisylan,
your suggestion worked- I was able to telnet in from the server prompt (everything works fine), but am still unable to access from the outside. Seems the firewall IS the culprit. What do you recommend I do now?

If you control the machine, you can open the port yourself; this can be rather involved so I'd rather only explain it if you have access to the root account of the server.

If you don't control the machine, you'll need to talk to whoever does, and ask them if they'll open the port for you. If they refuse, then, well, unfortunately there won't be much you can do. :(

I don't own the machine- I'm paying for hosting. I just sent an email to the owner, response pending :P