> [nonfunctional rDNS]  This in turn causes problems with using ftp --
> the ftp server on ftp.netbsd.org tries to look up the name; it takes
> sufficiently long to fail that (as best I can tell) my client times
> out: ftp.c seems to have a fixed 60-second timer before it gives up
> on the connection.

> I'm not certain how best to fix this.

I see two pieces to the problem here, in that there are two things that
could use fixing, and fixing either would make the symptom go away: the
rDNS trouble and the client-side timeouts.

Of course, I think both should get fixed.

I see no reason to have any application-level client-side timeout.
There's a timeout implicit in the connect(), so there's no need for an
application-level timeout there, and I would let the human level handle
any timeout after connect() succeeds.  (For automated use, one could
argue keepalives should be turned on, to prevent clients from hanging
forever if the server crashes.  I'm not sure whether I think that
should default on or off, though.)

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