cannot ssh to machine on lan when it has no internet connection

[Simon Morgan]

When I try to SSH to a machine on my LAN when its Internet connection
is down I get the following:

OpenSSH_3.9p1 Debian-1ubuntu2, OpenSSL 0.9.7e 25 Oct 2004
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Applying options for *
<snip>
debug1: Next authentication method: keyboard-interactive
<a couple of minutes of nothing>
Connection closed by 82.71.120.78

In the remote machines /var/log/auth.log I see:

Aug 25 10:37:10 bollo sshd[465]: fatal: Timeout before authentication
for 82.71.120.74

The resolv.conf on the remote machine has a single entry which points
to the machine itself which is running dnscache.

Any ideas? Could this be construed as being a bug?

Please CC me on any replies.

Thanks.

Simon