UPDATE

I am able to attach to the Employee database when doing it completely
local (no IP).

I don't have the standard firewall running, but obviously, something is
blocking the calls to the port.

Even if I try to connect on the same box with 127.0.0.1, it gets
blocked. Telnet does not succeed.

I have tried tcpdump, top, netstat, etc. They all point to that
Firebird is configured right.

My hosts.allow is blank

My hosts.deny has this one entry

http-rman : ALL EXCEPT LOCAL

I don't know what this means.

Anyway, I am now trying to figure out what is preventing the IP request
to go through. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.