Update on October 12, 1249: Todd R reports that the rsync server should be back online:

There were a few different things going on with cpan-rsync.perl.org, but things should be working with it as of last night.

We are still gluing some of the pieces back together. Many of them had been running untouched since 2010, and this has been an opportunity to make some long needed improvements.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with this issue!