hello,
whenever i attempt to login to my firewall via telnet*, it takes at least a full minute before prompting me for my login credentials. however, whenever i telnet to any other of my machines from the firewall, it connects right away. this is also the same for ssh. once i am connected to my firewall, i ssh to other clients by typing this command: "ssh -l root toby". toby being another box of mine which is listed in my /etc/hosts file. this also takes quite awhile to connect to. however, when i type out the IP address (192.168.1.56) i get through right away.

i'm pretty sure this has something to do with DNS lookup, but i'm not sure. my firewall connects to the inet through cable, which uses DHCP. i believe the machine is attempting to use /etc/resolv.conf to search for the host toby under the cable network first, then my own. i've commented out the search line in /etc/resolv.conf, but still no luck.

any suggestions?

*i know using telnet is insecure, but i'm behind a firewall here at work which doesn't allow ssh connections. my firewall script allows incoming telnet connections ONLY from the firewall here at work. so unless you work in my building, you can't connect to my network via telnet.

run tcpdump to see where the packets are routed, there might be DNS settings wrong.