name lookup/reverse map issues

Hi,

I'm using OpenSSH 3.6.1p1 on FreeBSD 5.2.1. I know it may be slightly out of
date but it's only a box I use to tinker with at home. The problem I'm
having is that when trying to connect I can get no further than entering my
login name. It doesn't ask for a password and does nothing (from the point
of view of the client side)

After running sshd in 3rd level debug mode I found it was stuck at the point
where it attempts to reverse map the remote IP.

I don't run DNS on my home network, but my FreeBSD box does have an
/etc/hosts file which contains entries for both the ssh client and ssh
server. I've also changed my name resolution order in /etc/host.conf so that
the /etc/hosts file is used before DNS resolution is attempted. By doing
that it solved my first problem which was that sshd was taking over a minute
to start during bootup, but the issue still remains when I try to connect
remotely for an SSH session. I was hoping sshd would just use the /etc/hosts
file to resolve the IP, and I'm not sure why it doesn't.

I've also tried the 'VerifyReverseMapping no' option in sshd_config, but
that didn't help. Didn't think it would anyway. I don't think my version of
OpenSSH has the RequireReverseMapping option as it's not in my sshd_config
man page. I don't think that would help anyway because from what I've found
on the net sshd still performs reverse mapping with that option set no 'no',
it just doesn't require it to work to allow a connection.

Any help much appreciated.

Daniel Briley