[Techtalk] Beyond personal -> large scale Linux usage

[Raven Alder]

Heya --

Quoth Scott (Mon, Aug 12, 2002 at 11:47:22AM -0400):
> > This sounds to me like it *could* be DNS. I had a similar problem
> > recently, while trying to connect to a server via telnet or ftp - it
> 
> Thanks for the idea, but that was one of the first things we checked out
> and by running iptraf we could see the box was reaching the DNS servers
> just fine, there was something else causing the pause.  It has not been
> resolved, even with some help from an engineer at Mandrake.
> 
> The strangest thing is, the same box running Suse 8 did NOT have the
> same problems.  I have a duplicate box now that I am installing Suse 8
> on and will test again.
 
	That's really weird.  If you see the same packets flowing in and
out of both boxes (Mandrake and Suse), but one hangs and the other
doesn't, it probably is something internal.  I would have suspected a
non-resolving DNS or ident lookup too.  9 times out of 10 with this
problem, that's the answer.  But if that were the case, you'd see the
unanswered query leaving the box and getting retransmitted on one, and
see it get ignored on the other.  

	If you've eliminated DNS/ident, you can try using strace to look
at the system calls that the failing daemon is making to see if there's
something internal gone wrong.  Compare what versions of the POP and
telnet daemons you've got on both boxes to see if there's any difference
there, and see if installing the same version that you've got on Suse on
Mandrake fixes anything.  

	Let us know if you learn anything else.

Cheers,
Raven

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