Can't bootstrap behind a firewall

[Dr. Alexander Klein]

Me again,

when I wanted to bootstrap the current hg-repository on another  
machine, I ran into a git error that's probably caused by our firewall  
which is set up pretty strictly:

Virtubuntu:/usr/local/src/dev/octave> ./autogen.sh
generating source lists for liboctave/Makefile...
../liboctave/vx-op-inc.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/vx-op-src.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/mx-op-inc.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/mx-op-src.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/smx-op-inc.mk is unchanged
../liboctave/smx-op-src.mk is unchanged
generating doc/interpreter/images.mk...
../../doc/interpreter/images.mk is unchanged
generating src/DLD-FUNCTIONS/module.mk...
../../src/DLD-FUNCTIONS/module.mk is unchanged
bootstrapping...
build-aux/bootstrap: Bootstrapping from checked-out octave sources...
build-aux/bootstrap: getting gnulib files...
Initialized empty Git repository in /usr/local/src/dev/octave/ 
gnulib/.git/
git.sv.gnu.org[0: 140.186.70.72]: errno=Connection timed out
fatal: unable to connect a socket (Connection timed out)

I found one suggested solution for the problem, namely to replace  
git:// in the respective URL by http://, but with http:// the request  
fails with yet another error:

fatal: http://git.sv.gnu.org/gnulib/info/refs not found: did you run  
git update-server-info on the server?

What else could I try?

Kind regards,

        Alex

--
          Dr. Alexander Klein, Diplom-Mathematiker

Physiologisches Institut       |               TransMIT Zentrum
Raum 543                       |        für Numerische Methoden
Aulweg 129                     |          Heinrich-Buff-Ring 44
35392 Giessen                  |                  35392 Giessen