Excessive delay after typing sudo?

Looks as though the optional pam_ck_connector.so is hanging not only sudo but other auth processes (eg roundcube/dovecot/imap).

From here by erikdhansen (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=36598)

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10399729&postcount=4

(Copied in case ubuntu reorganise their forums!)

"Re: SSH Login takes long time (no DNS Problem)
So I was having this same problem and it wasn't the DNS issue that everyone points to. It ended up being a problem with PAM.

We noticed this appearing in one of the mailserver logs. Not often, perhaps once a week.

imap failed @ *TIMESTAMP*. A restart was attempted automagically.

Service Check Method: [socket connect]

Reason: TCP Transaction Log:
<< * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS CHILDREN NAMESPACE THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES SORT QUOTA IDLE ACL ACL2=UNION STARTTLS] Courier-IMAP ready. Copyright 1998-2011 Double Precision, Inc. See COPYING for distribution information.
>> A001 LOGIN __cpanel__service__auth__imap__*********
<< * BYE Temporary problem, please try again later

Various websites and news outlets are reporting a potential leak of LinkedIn passwords.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&tl=en&u=http://www.dag...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/65-million-linkedin-passwords...

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/06/06/millions-of-linkedin-password...

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/06/06/bad-day-for-linkedin-6-5-mi...

Recommendations:

A quick workaround for dropping connections and broken pipe errors.

very annoying as many X based terminal apps freeze up at this point.

Adding

ServerAliveInterval 120

to ssh_config

helps avoid this - even on the Virgin Media cable connection and the allegedly "super"hub.

(I've seen people recommend turning hub off and on and all sorts of chicken waving - including switching to Bridge Mode - which is a good idea in itself if you have a decent router/firewall you'd rather use but is the wrong answer to this particular issue imho...)

Often when I'm at a client's site and need a good, flexible linux toolkit, I use Linux Mint (11 currently) on a usb stick with a 4GB persistent file.

Mostly, the PC's I work on at Client sites have > 512MB. Occasionally I do encounter a PC with less memory and even though I use LXDE (lightweight desktop environment) I run out of memory pretty rapidly. (Web Browsers especially...)

A quick run of "free" shows 0 swap and confirms why applications are silently vanishing:

total used free shared buffers cached