The man page says that the time is "elapsed real time (in [hours:]minutes:seconds)". So yes, that would be 1.05 sec. But in the browser, it's not taking 1.05 s, it's taking 6 seconds to go from "Resoving host..." to "Waiting for ....".

What could my problem be?

What do I do to make it resolve the host name faster?

If it is an OS configuration problem, where do I go to fix it?

The host lookup is equally slow in Mozilla, Opera, Firebird, and Konqueror, so it can't be a browser problem.

Ok, I'm really ignorant about networking stuff- I don't understand most of what's been posted in this thread- so please don't flame me if these are stupid suggestions.

Have you tried changing localhost from 127.0.0.1 to 0.0.0.0 ?

If you're using a firewall, have you tried disabling it to see if there's a difference?

Peace,
Siri Amrit

I turned off my firewall but the host lookup still takes 6 seconds, no matter what the site, be it britneyspears.org or microsoft.com.

I think 127.0.0.1 is recognized as being the "localhost".

bump

No one else has this problem?

Why on earth would you do a thing like that? 0.0.0.0 is a macro for "any net". That's going to break a whole bunch of things.

Any way, to answer the question, the only other thing I've seen like this was a recent post by someone claiming that "tmdns" (never heard of it?!?!) was causing their applications to be very slow. As soon as they disabled "tmdns" everything returned to normal.

It's pretty obvious by this point that no one else has seen a problem like that, so it has to be something specific to your setup in particular that doesn't occur by default.

" Why on earth would you do a thing like that? 0.0.0.0 is a macro for "any net". That's going to break a whole bunch of things."

Well, I've done it for years on both Linux and Windows and so far nothing seems to be broken. It can mess things up if you use a proxy server but I don't. I do it because I have a HUGE hosts file that very nicely blocks 75,894 adservers from setting banner ads and cookies. If I use Netscape and hosts says 127.0.0.1, Netscape will hang while it waits for a connection on any of those servers. Setting hosts to 0.0.0.0 makes it all go very fast. Using Konqueror, Mozilla and Firefox, all good.

I do it because I value my privacy. I do it because I'm one of those unfortunates using dialup and blocking all that bandwidth-wasting clutter speeds up my surfing. Not all hosts files are this large. Mine also includes a ton of porn sites because I don't want guests on my computer using it for porn.

Adserver hosts files: http://www.remember.mine.nu/

Peace,

Siri Amrit

That is a really ham-handed way to block sites. Just use a proxy, such as Squid with the Dan's Guardian plug-in. Using 0.0.0.0 as a host's IP address completely violates every RFC that has to do with networking and I'm amazed that it even works at all. Don't recommend that other people do that, you're only going to cause them problems.

I don't know much about networking stuff. I don't even understand Squid and I've spent a lot of time reading the Squid documentation. I suggested what I suggested because he hadn't been getting any other ideas that worked, and I had "personally" experienced a slowdown that improved when I changed my hosts file to 0.0.0.0.

I have not had problems doing this, so your statement that I'm only going to cause people problems by recommending this is a blanket generalization and not an absolute fact. Since I predicated my suggestion with the caveat that he take my obvious lack of experience into consideration, and I asked people not to flame me, I believe I have not endangered him and do not deserve to be censored by you.

There are a lot of sites on the web that talk about using the hosts file to block adservers. I didn't come up with it out of the blue. It works for me in my situation. YMMV!

Siri Amrit

The host lookup is equally slow in Mozilla, Opera, Firebird, and Konqueror, so it can't be a browser problem.
Can you rule out other stuff, like using proxies?


//OT
I have not had problems doing this, so your statement that I'm only going to cause people problems by recommending this is a blanket generalization and not an absolute fact.
(...)and do not deserve to be censored by you.
In defense of Chort (not that he really would need it), he certainly would not have any intention to do that. If there is any such perception that would be (with all due respect) yours and yours alone. Chort is an experienced, helpful, polite and valued member of the LQ community.
//And yes, I concur 0.0.0.0 should not be used for muting lookups. Like Chort already said, 0.0.0.0 is a notation for ANY net. IMHO the "proper" way would be to use an IP address in an unused non-routable range.

I stand corrected.

Siri Amrit

I believe it was me who posted that. Yes, it worked wonders for my box. I am running Mandrake 9.2 as well, and I believe tmdns is unique to this distro. I guess that's why most have never even heard of it? Anyway, it took up a long time to start up any X app on my system (5 secs or more), including host resolves.

So to the original poster, I suggest you go to Mandrake Control Center, click on System, then Services, then go down the list until you find tmdns. Click stop, and prevent it from running again by unchecking the box. Hope this helps.

Evan

I hae never had TMDNS running. It is always listed as "Stopped" in Mandrake's DrakXServices.

In DrakProxy, both HTTP and FTP server address fields are blank.

Here is some more info:

I am running Mandrake 9.2 Download Edition
I use a Linksys EtherFast 10/100 card which uses the tulip driver when running in Linux.
I am connected to the Internet via a WebStar cable modem which connects to the Rogers Hi-Speed network.

Here is my /etc/hosts file:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 CPE00207805d97a-CM000a7369e75e
127.0.0.1 cpe00207805d97a-cm000a7369e75e
127.0.0.1 cpe00207805d97a-cm000a7369e75e.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com
127.0.0.1 www.jethit.com

Here is my resolv.conf file:
search bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com
nameserver 24.153.22.195
nameserver 24.153.23.66

Here is my nsswitch.conf file:
#
# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# An example Name Service Switch config file. This file should be
# sorted with the most-used services at the beginning.
#
# The entry '[NOTFOUND=return]' means that the search for an
# entry should stop if the search in the previous entry turned
# up nothing. Note that if the search failed due to some other reason
# (like no NIS server responding) then the search continues with the
# next entry.
#
# Legal entries are:
#
# nisplus or nis+ Use NIS+ (NIS version 3)
# nis or yp Use NIS (NIS version 2), also called YP
# dns Use DNS (Domain Name Service)
# files Use the local files
# db Use the local database (.db) files
# compat Use NIS on compat mode
# hesiod Use Hesiod for user lookups
# [NOTFOUND=return] Stop searching if not found so far
#

# To use db, put the "db" in front of "files" for entries you want to be
# looked up first in the databases
#
# Example:
#passwd: db files nisplus nis
#shadow: db files nisplus nis
#group: db files nisplus nis

passwd: files nisplus nis
shadow: files nisplus nis
group: files nisplus nis

#hosts: db files nisplus nis dns
hosts: files nisplus nis dns

# Example - obey only what nisplus tells us...
#services: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#networks: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#protocols: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#rpc: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#ethers: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files
#netmasks: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files

bootparams: nisplus [NOTFOUND=return] files

ethers: files
netmasks: files
networks: files
protocols: files
rpc: files
services: files

netgroup: nisplus

publickey: nisplus

automount: files nisplus
aliases: files nisplus


Any suggestions?

Okay, I've realized that whenever I change resolv.conf, when I reboot the computer the resolv.conf file gets overwritten. So when I removed "search bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com" from the file, it reappeared when I restarted the computer. I even did chmod 444 on the file but the file still changed.

You can imagine that web pages linked to ads on different IP addresses take 12, 18, 24, etc. seconds to load.

I'm having this exact same problem with Mandrake 9.1. resolve.conf is being overwritten everytime I reboot. I've got a cable modem going to my router, then into my computer.

So my resolve.conf reads:

search kascable.com
nameserver 192.168.0.1

where 192.168.0.1 is my router.