After having some packet traces done, what was revealed is that from a windows client running the softerra ldap browser, we could see the connection be established between client and server (syn, ack synack) client requests sending of data, and server resets/closes the connection, never sending any data,  as I also saw with attempting to telnet to port 636 - connection is closed by remote host.

Regarding the question of is TLS enabled, if I understand the doc correctly, the answer is yes.  With respect to the TLS_REQCERT never statement, I believe it was set this way because this was only intended to be a testing server. 

contents of ldap.conf:

#
# LDAP Defaults
#

# See ldap.conf(5) for details
# This file should be world readable but not world writable.

BASE    dc=plandb,dc=stuff,dc=acme,dc=com
URI     ldap://plandb-qa.stuff.acme.com ldaps://plandb-qa.stuff.acme.com:636

#SIZELIMIT      12
#TIMELIMIT      15
#DEREF          never

TLS_CACERTDIR   /etc/openldap/certs
TLS_REQCERT     never


currently running slapd process:

1 S ldap      5603     1  0  80   0 - 111440 futex_ Jan21 ?       00:00:02 /usr/sbin/slapd -h  ldap:/// ldaps:/// ldapi:/// -u ldap


On Thursday, January 23, 2014 3:25 AM, Ulrich Windl <Ulrich.Windl@rz.uni-regensburg.de> wrote:
>>> c chupela <cnctema68@yahoo.com> schrieb am 22.01.2014 um 18:43 in Nachricht
<1390412584.5499.YahooMailNeo@web140101.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>:
> I've been tasked with figuring out why a redhat 6.4 server w/openldap v2.4.23
> is not accessible.
> This server is a test server. I have a production server that is working
> properly, and I've gone thru and compared config files, etc, but haven't
> found any differences.
>
>  I'm a newbie with this, so my understanding is still somewhat limited. 
> Here's what I've done or checked so far:
>
> - iptables is not running
> - if I run netstat, I can see port 389/port 636 in listening state:
>
> tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:636                0.0.0.0:*                 
> LISTEN      5603/slapd
> tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:389                0.0.0.0:*                 
> LISTEN      5603/slapd
> tcp        0      0 :::636                      :::*                       
> LISTEN      5603/slapd
> tcp        0      0 :::389                      :::*                       
> LISTEN      5603/slapd
>
> I can telnet to port 389 on this server from another server, but not to port
> 636 - putty will throw back an immediate 'connection closed by remote host'
> message.
>
> I'm not seeing any slapd related messages in /var/log/messages.
>
> What else can I check on here?

Syslog


>
> Thanks
> Chris