Hi all, Situation: 2 independant servers, one running RH7.2, the other SuSE8.1, with the same symptoms. There is a delay between the TCP/IP habdshake and the server greeting of 26 seconds (SuSE) or 32 seconds respectively (RH). Indeed everything is working, but there is this delay. Some tcpdump: tcpdump -n -i bond1 'tcp[1] == 110 or tcp[3] == 110' tcpdump: listening on bond1 13:25:24.835287 10.10.10.100.60719 > 81.169.151.156.110: S \ 3714172130:3714172130(0) win 5840 <mss 1460,sackOK,timestamp \ 335589204 0,nop,wscale 0> (DF) [tos 0x10] 13:25:24.879667 81.169.151.156.110 > 10.10.10.100.60719: S \ 2643711030:2643711030(0) ack 3714172131 win 5792 <mss \ 1460,sackOK,timestamp 17886154 335589204,nop,wscale 0> (DF) 13:25:24.879702 10.10.10.100.60719 > 81.169.151.156.110: . ack 1 win \ 5840 <nop,nop,timestamp 335589209 17886154> (DF) [tos 0x10] 13:25:50.964202 81.169.151.156.110 > 10.10.10.100.60719: P 1:35(34) \ ack 1 win 5792 <nop,nop,timestamp 17888762 335589209> (DF) 13:25:50.964224 10.10.10.100.60719 > 81.169.151.156.110: . ack 35 \ win 5840 <nop,nop,timestamp 335591818 17888762> (DF) [tos 0x10] ... This seems to concern only services that are started by inetd, so I thought inetd would cause this delay. But when I empty the chains (only having a default policy of ACCEPT, nothing more) this delay vanishes and everything is working as expected. Complete ruleset: *filter :INPUT DROP [343:76556] :FORWARD DROP [0:0] :OUTPUT DROP [1648:107018] -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22222 -m state --state NEW \ --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -m state --state NEW \ --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 25 -m state --state NEW \ --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 110 -m state --state NEW \ --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -m state --state NEW \ --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW \ --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 21 -m state --state NEW \ --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 990 -m state --state NEW \ --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 21000:21199 -m state \ --state NEW --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 123 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 53 -j ACCEPT -A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT -A OUTPUT -p tcp -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A OUTPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 123 -j ACCEPT -A OUTPUT -p udp -m udp --sport 53 -j ACCEPT -A OUTPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT COMMIT Nothing complicated in my eyes. I have absolutely no idea how this tiny ruleset can cause such delays or - at least - is involved in this. Any ideas are highly welcome. Thanks and have a nice time, Joerg