sounds like a firewall issue OR an 'selinux' issue; try disabling the firewall to see if it makes a difference:
/etc/init.d/iptables stop
if you can connect afterwards then you know it's your firewall; if not then it might be an 'selinux' issue. Set 'selinux' to 'disabled' in /etc/sysconfig/selinux and reboot and see if that helps.