Very Computer

Hello all,
after much *, sweat, tears and swearing I got Linux running on a
Compaq 386/20. It has 10MB RAM, about 1GB disk space and a CD-ROM.
It recently gone on the internet as an ftp resource.

Everything worked fine at first but now Telnet & ftp have become unreliable.
When they work, they work fine. However when they don't:

- FTP session
  Open <symbolic address> says:

  "Connected to <Symbolic address>"
  "Escape character is '^]'."
  "Connection closed by foreign host."

- Telnet session

  "Connected to <Symbolic address>"
  "421 Service not available, remote server has closed connection"

  and drops me back to the Linux prompt.

It does this regardless of the client (DOS, Windows, Mac or Un*x).
Ping finds the box and since it sometimes works I'm a bit stuck on
what to try next. I've tried "kill -HUP <inetd PID>". The damn
thing is visible and connect-to-able...

Our campus uses nameservers and I've included four in resolv.conf.
Name resolution uses "named" nameservers first. (Order bind, host
in host.conf).

I've just tried *again* and ... then damn thing is now working!!!
I have a few ideas but don't know how to test them, they are:

- Could it be something is timing out (our network is very busy
  and slow quite often) ? How do I confirm this ?

- Could it be some connection limit (shouldn't be, it's very rare
  that more than one person are connected at once).
  Where is this info held ?

- Could it be a name resolution funny (would "host" help here ?).
  Can I test this ?

- Could it be the first Telnet request(s) fail until some
  sort of dynamic table somewhere is updated ?

- Is inetd not loading telnetd for some reason ?

I've checked that the symbolic name and IP number are correct.
The system does a reboot (via a cron script) but this is
identical to another (486) Linux box which works fine ...

I've read books, scanned FAQs etc. but don't really know
where I can sensibly look next. I don't expect answers,
just suggestions of what/where to looknext.
I apologise if this is a trivial or stupid question, I'm
an acting sysadmin with my "L" plates still on ...

Also, another query:
Where is lpd loaded at boot-time ?
Can it safely be *not* loaded to save CPU and RAM ?
(the machine doesn't have a printer attached).

Thanks in advance for any information/suggestions,
   Andy.

Hi.

I don't guess it's the solution, but have a look at it. Your ftp problems
are somehow known to me. A colleague had a restricted shell in his passwd
entry and wasn't able to ftp for that reason. I don't know if telnet hangs
too if so. But you should be able to find out whether you have a "real"
shell like /bin/bash in your passwd entry.

Hope this helps,
Tom.