The telnet client I use for raw connections. Anyway, starting today, telnet has been real funky. At first I thought it was the server I was connecting to. It would take 15 seconds before I'd get a response.

Well, several hours later (trying to find the problem) I decide to do: telnet --help, and see if there's a debug switch.

It still hung. Even on telnet --help. Takes nearly 15 seconds for the help text to display.

No other commands have this issue. I've rebooted, still the same old hang. Hangs as root too.

Any ideas? Thanks

This on Linux or Windows? Have you tried reinstalling? Or considered using ssh as telnet is unsecure piece of junk now..

Linux, of course. Reinstalling, I've considered. I don't recall which package telnet comes with though. I don't think reinstalling would have been the solution though.

You're right, telnet is insecure, but it allows for raw connections, which is a necessity for the work I'm doing. Basically I'm writing server applications that conform to pop3/smtp RFC specifications. For testing, I use telnet to connect locally to the server. I do have SSHD and SSH installed. I use SSH for remote administration.

But, as oddly as the problem introduced itself, it has just as mysteriously gone away.

I have a suspicious feeling the problem was that I had a domain in my /etc/hosts file that no longer resolved (the nameserver was down...). Removing the domain, no more hanging telnet.

Yay.

as trickykid said..
Telnet is far to old to use now..
I'd go for ssh no matter what
unless you want a pc that's wide open for anyone to try to hack into..
*is just running secure servers*
Much to the irritation of those that wants to access my ftp with normal ftp clients *grins*
Windows users the bunch of them