[BlueOnyx:22931] Strange delay problem

[Darren Shea]

I'm running a 5208R system, which has been chugging along for probably 5
years or more without any major issues, but tonight, around 8pm CDT, my
monitoring system reported a problem with FTP and SMTP. Active monitor
reports the ftp server isn't running:
------------------
The FTP server is not running and could not be restarted. In the Server
Desktop, try turning the FTP server off then on again to see if this
corrects the problem. If the FTP server is still unable to start, try
rebooting the server itself by clicking the Reboot Now button in the Power
menu under System Settings. If the FTP server is still unable to start,
please refer http://BlueOnyx.it/ for technical support.
------------------
Here's the weird part - I can still FTP to the system, but there is a 10
second delay in between when I hit enter and it asks for my username. This
delay is always the same, regardless of whether I use a FQDN or the IP
address. After that, it works normally.

SMTP is similar - I'm getting timeouts during the authentication phase when
my client (iPhone) is trying to send, but if it keeps trying, it does
eventually connect, and at that point, the message sends just fine.

I've checked the obvious possibilities - "Hostname Lookups" is off, and the
delay occurs even if the address I'm connecting from is in the Login Manager
Whitelist

Does this sound familiar to anyone at all? I'm looking at pam or xinetd as
the likely culprit, but not really getting anywhere...