Ubuntu Networking :: Maverick Networking Split Personality?

So, I use Ubuntu 10.10 on an old Dell laptop as the router for the house. It shares its Vodacom 3G with the rest of us, via the network port of the laptop. This works fine. We can all surf to our hearts' content.I can also VNC into the desktop of the router machine if I ever need to accomplish X, Y or Z on it, which is handy.However, I cannot for the life of me SSH in, or connect to the MySQL server that also lives on that machine. This is a pain.What I want to do is set up a database on a remote server, and then tunnel in via SSH. I'm trying to test that configuration using local machines on my network. My desktop machine happens to be XP, and I'm using Putty to try to initiate the SSH connection, but I keep getting a message saying NETWORK ERROR: CONNECTION REFUSED.