[H-GEN] Unable to telnet

[Martin Pool]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and
Unix-related topics. ]

Mike Andrew wrote:

> > It sounds like it is trying to resolve the host you are coming from by
> > querying the DNS.  Since you are off line, then you have to wait until
> > all attempts to contact all your nameservers time out.  Is your /ete/hosts
> file
> > set up properly (ie. including 127.0.0.1 localhost) ?

Some inetds come with paranoid DNS turned on, so they won't allow the
connection unless they can do forward and reverse resolution from the
nameservice.  Unless you turn that option off, you will have to run a
local nameserver, which is probably not such a bad thing....

> I'm having the same problem and have just 'lived with it'
> here's my /etc/hosts
> 
> 127.0.0.1       localhost localhost.localdomain
> 192.168.1.1   nfserver.nf    nfserver
> 
> our dialins get connected in the range 192.168.1.200+ and telnet can take
> ages if we have not dialled out

Things taking ages if you're not dialed out are a classic symptom of
misconfigured nameservers.  The best thing may be to run a local
nameserver that knows about all local domains and forwards to your ISP
for other queries.  Make this the only entry in resolv.conf.

IIRC, RedHat have a package called caching-nameserver*.rpm that will set
this up for you.  The Debian bind*.deb will offer this option during
configuration.

-- 
 /\\\  Mincom | Martin Pool          | martinp at mincom.com
// \\\        | Software Engineer    | Phone: +61 7 3303-3333
\\ ///        | Mincom Ltd.          | 
 \///         | Teneriffe, Brisbane  | Speaking for myself only

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