how to troubleshoot connection issues from heavy forwarder to syslog receiver?

[pavanae]

I have a heavy forwarder in which I setup the outputs.conf as follows

[tcpout]
defaultGroup = indexer_group,forwarders_syslog
useACK = true

[tcpout:indexer_group]
server = indexer_ip_address:indexer:port
clientCert = xxxxxxxx
maxQueueSize = 20MB
sslPassword = xxxxxxxxx

[tcpout:forwarders_syslog]
server = syslog_ip:syslog_port
clientCert = xxxxxxx
maxQueueSize = 20MB
sslPassword = xxxxxxxx
blockOnCloning = false
dropClonedEventsOnQueueFull = 10
useACK = false

Now the heavyforwarder is forwarding logs to indexer_group successfully but I am seeing the following errors on splunkd.log when the heavy forwarder trying to forward the logs to syslog server

WARN  TcpOutputProc - Cooked connection to ip=syslog_ip:syslog_port timed out
ERROR TcpOutputFd - Connection to host=syslog_ip:syslog_port failed
WARN  TcpOutputFd - Connect to syslog_ip:syslog_port  failed. Connection refused

Now what are the troubleshooting steps to identify the root cause. Is there any why to check in usnix server whether the heavy forwarder is able to send to receiver on a specific port?

[richgalloway]

"Connection refused" indicates this could be a networking/firewall problem. Use your favorite tool (NOT ping) to verify the HF can connect to the syslog IP:port.