"Connection refused" is the best error message SSH can give you, and almost nobody treats it that way: a refusal arrives in milliseconds because the remote host's kernel personally answered your SYN with a TCP reset (RST), which proves three

"Connection refused" is the best error message SSH can give you, and almost nobody treats it that way: a refusal arrives in milliseconds because the remote host's kernel personally answered your SYN with a TCP reset (RST), which proves three