[plt-dev] Connectivity issues

Two unrelated things:

* There was a problem today with outbound email from the servers.
  It's resolved now, which explains the wave of messages (and the
  occasional repeating ones).

* The server runs `denyhosts' -- this is something that blocks IP
  addresses that fail to connect a number of times.  (Without this,
  the servers are bombarded by ssh attempts -- it seems that viruses
  and other malware are often running these dictionary attacks.)

  I have resolved the problems that were reported, and adjusted the
  configuration to make it a bit more forgiving.  Two things to know
  about this:

  1. If you can't connect for some mysterious reason (that is, you're
     sure that you're using the right ssh key etc), then tell me.
     I'll need your IP address to find if the system blocked you out.

  2. If you haven't set up your ssh config with a name for the git
     server -- please do so.  Another way to deal with these attacks
     if denyhosts is too inconvenient is to run ssh on some random
     port, so if you have an ssh configuration entry, you will just
     need to specify a port there and things will continue to run
     without further tweaking ("All problems in computer science can
     be solved by another level of indirection").

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!