I originally found this fix at http://www.walkernews.net/2009/04/06/how-to-fix-scp-and-ssh-login-prompt-is-very-slow-in-linux/ and it’s not specific to CentOS 6, but I’ve only observed this delay problem on CentOS 6.

Now, on to the problem. SSH logins to these CentOS 6 servers were delayed by about 30 seconds. (I never timed it exactly, but it was long enough to be very frustrating when you’re trying to get work done) When logging in using ssh -vvv user@hostname the debug output shows the delay happens at these lines:

debug3: authmethod_is_enabled gssapi-with-mic
debug1: Next authentication method: gssapi-with-mic
debug1: An invalid name was supplied
Cannot determine realm for numeric host address

debug1: An invalid name was supplied
Cannot determine realm for numeric host address

debug1: An invalid name was supplied


The solution appears to be disabling the GSS API authentication method on the SSH server.

To disable GSS API, first open/etc/ssh/sshd_config in your favorite editor
vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Then find the line that says
GSSAPIAuthentication yes
Change it to
GSSAPIAuthentication no
and save the file. Finally, restart the sshd service.
service sshd restart

SSH logins should now be quick as usual!

Visit the Embroidery Reader page to get the update.

I would like to say thanks to Bob Spradlin for sending me a detailed bug report so that I could find and fix this issue.

Changes from 1.3.0-1.3.1:

• Fixed color number 15 – was lilac, it’s now brown/brass. Thanks to Ryan Lovett and Robert Heel for reporting this one.

Changes from 1.2.2-1.3.0:

• Changed code to use PEC section instead of PES data. It seems to be able to read all file types now. A big thanks goes to Michel Veerman for his help on this one.
• Added an option in the settings to ‘filter’ stitches based on length. Some designs look much better with it, others end up missing parts.
• Probably lots of small fixes, but I can’t think of them right now.

Changes from 1.2.1-1.2.2:

• This version fixes a crash caused by saving empty values in the settings file. It is otherwise the same as the previous version. (1.2.1)

Changes from older versions:

• Basic support for printing designs. Thanks to majorsnazz for the suggestion.
• Ability to copy design images to the clipboard, so you can paste the image into any image editor.
• A number of cosmetic bugfixes.
• A simple icon. (I got tired of the default one)

<disclaimer>
This worked for me – it may not for you. Make sure you have a backup of the image file before starting. I believe this will only work for raw type images… using it on qcow2, vmdk or any other type will probably cause a corrupted file. You have been warned…
</disclaimer>

You’ll need to know how big you want the final image to be in bytes. This command will grow the file to the size you want without actually allocating the full size.

dd if=/dev/zero of=file-to-grow.img bs=1 seek=(number of bytes - 1) count=1
Update, this command is more concise and does the same thing:
dd of=file-to-grow.img bs=1 seek=(number of bytes) count=0

You can also use shorthand values like 20G or 512M or 2T for number of bytes. Mind your abbreviations – dd sees G as 1024*1024*1024, but sees GB as 1000*1000*1000.

The file will then be allocated as the VM writes to it. You can check the allocated size of a file with ls -lsh. (the first column is the allocated size)
Note that this command does not expand the partition(s) or file system(s) on the hard drive image – you’ll need to use another tool like Gparted (available on the Ubuntu live CD) for this task.
You may need to use sudo in front of the command, depending on your setup.

Thanks go to John Bobay for reporting this bug. I think he was the first person to play long enough to find it.

Visit the Bugsim page to download it.

For those who have been testing it already, this version removes the separate windows and merges them into one and adds an image for the medium size bin.

Download it from the Bugsim page and then tell me what you think on the Contact page.

Moral of this story: if in doubt, back it up.