Connection refused from external server
Without indication if your bitcoin.conf belongs to the client or server, I leave you some guidance on what to check:

Make sure your server bitcoin.conf has the following line:
rpcallowip=your.client.ip.address

Both server and client bitcoin.conf should contain the same rpcuser and rpcpassword lines
rpcuser=foo
rpcpassword=bar

Make sure your client bitcoin.conf has the following line:
rpcconnect=your.server.ip.address