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SSH and sudo were starting very slowly because /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts did not match. After adding a line for the hostname in the hosts file, the initial 2-4 second delay no longer occurs.

At first I was surpised the mis-configured hosts file caused delays with SSH and sudo. I was SSH'ing to the server with a direct IP address, and sudo did not seem to require a hostname lookup. However, I read they were both doing reverse DNS lookups. (sudo also helpfully reported it was unable to resolve the host)

What other network operations will be slowed down by such a mis-configured hosts file? For example, could a mis-configured hosts file slow down connections to an Apache Tomcat server with Spring hosted on that server?

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  • ping. It does a reverse DNS lookup for each packet. Dec 30, 2011 at 3:51

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Anything performing a reverse DNS lookup will be slowed down only if you are lucky, rest of the time they'll create a havoc. Ping and traceroute will behave funny. If you are running a mail server then there is a high probability that your mails will be treated as spam by gmail and other reputed providers.

Basically it is your trust rating which you are compromising.

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Were your DNS servers correct in /etc/resolv.conf? If so, this shouldn't really have had any major effect. If your DNS servers were also broken, this could result in significant delays as software waiting for the timeout for DNS queries.

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  • There is a working nameserver listed in /etc/resolv.conf, but I forgot to mention the folks here like to change the hostname without actually registering it in DNS.
    – Leftium
    Dec 30, 2011 at 3:21

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