My backup script does some rsh's/rdumps and some local dumps.  Once in
about every 5 nights,  I get a timeout on one of the rshs in the middle
of the script.  Which one fails seems to change each time.

Can anybody provide a sensible explanation for this?  If I were awake at
4:40 am when this runs from cron, maybe I could debug it, but I refuse
to do that on general principles :)

The tape drive is a Sony SDT-5000 on a P5/100 with NCR 53c810 and SMC
8432 (de0 PCI ethernet); the remote machine is a 486/33 with AHA1540 and
el-cheapo ne2000 clone ISA ethernet.  The ethernet is thinwire with only
these two machines on it, and an unused third thinwire T connector which
occasionally has a laptop plugged in.

==John