Why do I get connection closed by foreign host messages when I try to telnet to the port the ODBC ODBC Bridge server is listening on?

First, check all the points listed in Why do I get connection refused errors from the client?

"Connection closed by foreign host" implies that you got a connection then it was prematurely disconnected.

If you are connecting to a Linux or UNIX server, check the following:

1. If you are running tcp_wrappers, make sure the client machine is allowed to connect to the esoobserver service on the server machine. Check your /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny files. Refer to the man page on hosts_access and tcp_wrappers. If your esoobserver entry in inetd.conf doesn't contain something like tcpd, you're probably not running tcp_wrappers. By default, the ODBC-ODBC Bridge installation doesn't use tcp_wrappers.
2. Check that the script pointed to by the esoobserver entry in inetd.conf exists, is executable, and runs the correct image.
3. Check your system logs for other possible problems.