SCO

We have an OpenServer 5.0.5 system that has worked forever, but I'm hearing complaints of logon delays for users now. Normally they would telnet in and the logon screen would pop up, but now it sometimes takes a minute or more, and the user must hit the enter key to get it to appear. Everything seems fine when they get on the system. I am not a Unix admin, so any help is appreciated - thank you!
Mike

Has the load on the server increased over time or the number of telnet logins increased over time? Could this be load related in any way?

Thanks for the reply. No, in fact there's probably only 2 users on it now, compared to 30 users and 3 line printers in its earlier days. I get the feeling that something is stalling it, whether it is a process or hardware. If a person hits enter multiple times while waiting for something to appear on the screen, when it finally does appear there will be multiple login prompts. So it's getting the signal, just not replying. And once we're logged in, the connection is great. Pinging the server anytime is immediate, so it's not a network issue. I'm stumped!

So what client are the users using to connect from? Windows? Putty?

When they telnet are they (or the client script) giving a nodename or an ip address?

When you ping are you giving a nodename or ip address?

You're a little over my head here, but I'll try to help. A program called Procomm Plus is the telnet client, but I could just use the telnet command from a Windows prompt as well for our uses (all text based). The server does not hand out ip addresses to users, and when I ping the server I am pinging the ip adress from a Windows command prompt. I don't know about nodes. From the console, access is immediate.

For example, you (or Procomm) could execute:

telnet 14.123.43.55

or

telnet jupiter (assuming the node is called jupiter)

In the first case no name resolution is needed, whereas, in the second case the box has to get "jupiter" resolved to its ip address.

I have seen similar connection issues occur many times due to the network boys changing something on the name server which has nothing to do with either the server or the client.

In Windows, if you type "telnet <ip address>" does it still exhibit connection delay?

Have you re-booted the unix system recently?
Run "netstat -nr" and see if all the intended routes exist.
Are all the client computers listed in /etc/hosts. This is not necessary, but does improve performance.