>Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 14:03:02 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "Brian H. Trammell" <brian@altara.org>

>I'm running NetBSD/sparc and am noticing that both Sendmail and Pine take
>a long time (up to 30 seconds) to start. I'm watching syslog for cues as
>to what could be happening, but sendmail started apparently happily...

They are probably trying to lookup the hostname of 127.0.0.1, and
timing out because you're not running named.

Add the line below to /etc/resolv.conf (create if not already
present):

lookup file bind

That incantation makes the resolver look in /etc/hosts before trying
a DNS query.
-- 
Mike Long <mikel@shore.net>                http://www.shore.net/~mikel
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -- H.L. Mencken