> [...] on the target host [...] As usual, it might be interesting to get some actual information about the systems involved (client and server). For example: uname -a > Rest of the machines it hardly takes ?0.90? or ?1? sec for ssh / remsh > login. Does "Rest of the machines" mean different clients or different servers? Before posting this question, did you try a Forum (or Web) search for keywords like, say: slow ssh ? You might find many old, similar discussions. > Also try remsh and ssh with the IP address. [...] As that Forum search should reveal, the usual DNS-related problem is that the Telnet/rsh/remsh/ssh/... server can't get the name of the client system (whatever that is here) from its IP address. The _server_ has the problem, not the client, so specifying an IP address instead of a name on the client tends to have no effect. The (a) test (on the server) is: nslookup ip.address.of.client If that command fails (slowly), then you should probably look at the DNS resolver configuration of the server. > [...] And for .rhosts on the remote system, put both the hostname as > well as the IP address. I'd expect ~/.rhosts to affect pass/fail, not speed. (I also would suggest not changing many things at one time when trying to locate a problem.)