it takes a long long long time to time-out a login attempt

[Vasil Dimov]

> On Sat, Mar 13, 2004 at 04:21:58AM -0800, Sameer wrote:
> > I'm trying to ssh into my FreeBSD (5.2.1-release sparc version) box from my
> > desktop, however, it'll take a few seconds for the "login as" prompt to
> > appear.  I enter my the user name and hit enter. the login attempt then sits
> > there for about 90 seconds w/o asking for the password, then the connection
> > times out.
> >
> >
> >
> > Any ideas what's causing this?  Do I need to put the workstation's
> > information into the hosts file or something?
> >
> >
> >
> > The funny thing is that when I ssh from another server that's on the same
> > VLAN as the FreeBSD box (I should mention that the workstation is on a
> > different VLAN) the login process happens immediately.
> 
> Sounds like classic DNS timeout problems.  When you ssh into a box, it
> will look up the IP number you're coming from in the DNS, and then
> lookup the hostname it derives from that to make sure that the IP
> number appears as listed for that address.

OpenSSH_3.6.1p1 FreeBSD-20030924

Not exactly.
sshd always tries to lookup IPaddr->hostname, but makes the
"hostname->IPaddr match" check only if VerifyReverseMapping is "on" in
sshd_config(5). It is "off" by default.