[lug] Weird su/sudo/login/ssh/mail problem

[Bear Giles]

One of my systems recently developed a weird symptom that is very
annoying.  I'll be reinstalling the OS soon anyway (moving to Woody),
but would like to understand what happened here.

The problem:  shortly after rebooting (typically around 5 minutes)
any call to su, sudo, login, or ssh "fails."  I use quotes because
most of the programs will eventually succeed after a delay of several
hours.  The same thing happens with outbound mail - it will sit in
the mail queue for hours or longer.  Yet XDM lets me log in.

This happens regardless of any activity I do.  It's clear that 
the trigger is something going on in the background, but I've been
unable to figure out what it is or why it is having this effect.

Any ideas?


Bear