[SunHELP] Unable to resolve hostnames and slow arp -a

[duke.glover at verizon.com]

Hello SUN gods,

Solaris 8 64bit with latest Cluster Patch on a SUN E450

Here is the problem:

Every so often (couple times a week) my proxies will all of a sudden be
unable to resolve hostnames via external DNS.  They are connected to the
Internet via external interface qfe0.  Basically I will start to receive
complaints that people are unable to browse the WWW (they point to the
proxies in their browser proxy settings).  10 times out of 10 I will go to
the proxies and attempt an nslookup on an external site like www.yahoo.com.
The proxy will hang for a few minutes and then finally timeout without
resolving the name.  Also, while this is happening an arp -a will take
about 5 or more minutes to return the arp cache info.  I just happen to
have another system that has an external connection and I can perform an
nslookup on this system while the proxies are having the problem so I know
that the DNS server(s), or the connection to, is not the issue.  This
symptom will usually last anywhere from an hour or more and then seems to
just disappear.  If I init 6 the proxies they will usually work fine once
they
boot back up.  Also, I have a pair of proxies and it can be happening on
one and not the other or it can be happening on both.  I can find no
pattern.

It has ben suggested to me that this may be a gethostbyname or a
getipnodebyname process issue.

Any help and/or ideas is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Duke Glover
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Duke Glover
813-978-5682
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