Why does ssh try to run df, netstat, arp ...?

[Nico De Ranter]

Howdy,


I recently had a problem with one of our servers (crashed due to power
failure :-). While this shouldn't have been a problem for most
of the workstations and servers on the network I noticed that I
wasn't able to use ssh anymore. Ssh would simply hang during the connection.
rsh and telnet however were able to connect without problem so there
was no problem with the destination or the environment of the user.
I noticed that for some strange reason ssh tries to run arp, netstat and df
during the connection (I can understand the use of arp and netstat but why on
earth df).  Unfortunately df blocks when it tries to measure the size
of a filesystem which is mounted (e.g. by automount) but unavailable (since
the server crashed) I guess this is the reason why the ssh connection
failed. Ofcourse having my whole network unreachable by ssh just because
one server goes down is totaly unacceptable (I might as well start using
Windows). How can I turn this behaviour off or can anybody give me a
really really good reason why ssh would need df?

Thanks in advance,

Nico


--------------------------------------------------------
 "It has been said that there are only two businesses
  refer to customers as users: illegal drug trade and
               the computer industry." 
--------------------------------------------------------
Nico De Ranter
Sony Service Center (SDCE/NEE-B)
Sint Stevens Woluwestraat 55 (Rue de Woluwe-Saint-Etienne)
1130 Brussel (Bruxelles), Belgium, Europe, Earth
Telephone: +32 2 724 86 41 Telefax: +32 2 726 26 86
e-mail: nico.deranter at sonycom.com