HeinzKnoth wrote:

(I'm still curious what difference between the two version resulted in that anyway)

So am I. But I do not know how to find that out.

hurra!
that works! (I should have tried that before...)
and putty lets me login to!

Martin I really thank you for your help!! - Now I can try to change authentication to ssh ...

You did help me in a similar case about two years ago, when I worked for another customer and had problems, since then I introduced putty and winscp for two other customers and I always tell them how helpful you have been.

(I'm still curious what difference between the two version resulted in that anyway)

If the legal notice is displayed as "authentication banner", then I do not think it is cause of the delay.
What if you specify directly IP address of the server instead of the hostname?

Well - I suppose so, but I'm not allowed to. These are (hundreds of) Servers underlying a written (and monitored!) Policy which requests a legal notice poping up!
I wonder why the older versions could deal with that, the newer not?
The old putty version shows the notice
##########################
Legal Notice

Access to this computer is prohibited unless authorised.
Accessing programs or data unrelated to your job is prohibited
##########################
and obviously answers with a "CR" which makes login possible.

In the older version of winscp I see nothing of the legal notice at all.
The newer version shows me - after that 30 seconds delay - a "authentication Banner", containing the legal notice
*****
Legal Notice

Access to this computer is prohibited unless authorised.
Accessing programs or data unrelated to your job is prohibited
******

When I mark the box "never show this banner again" I dont see it at the next login at that server -

but unfortunately this does not solve the 30 seconds delay-question.

To make it short:
the newer putty does not allow login at all
the newer winscp has this annoying delay (when you have to connect many many times a day to many servers ...)

the older versions have none of this problems in exactly the same environment.

If you remove the notice, does the delay go away?

oh sorry, yes it has (but I usually dont need it - using remote desktop - so I did not notice)
######putty 0.58#########
2006-07-10 22:06:14 Looking up host "defrwcp121dws36.dws.eur.deuba.com"
2006-07-10 22:06:44 Connecting to 0.1.0.1 port 22
2006-07-10 22:06:44 Server version: SSH-2.0-VShell_2_2_2_547 VShell
2006-07-10 22:06:44 We claim version: SSH-2.0-PuTTY_Release_0.58

there is the same 30-seconds delay

I think I'm on the way to find out a difference now:
all the new 2003 servers send a legal notice

when I try putty 0.58 I cannot overcome that,
it hangs with:
********
Using username "xtrnkno".
********

putty 0.54 will let me login with:
***********************************************
Using username "xtrnkno".
Legal Notice

Access to this computer is prohibited unless authorised.
Accessing programs or data unrelated to your job is prohibited
xtrnkno@defrwcp121dws36.dws.eur.deuba.com's password:
***********************************************

and the eventlog shows no delay:
###############
2006-07-10 22:18:24 Looking up host "defrwcp121dws36.dws.eur.deuba.com"
2006-07-10 22:18:24 Connecting to 0.1.0.1 port 22
2006-07-10 22:18:26 Writing new session log (raw mode) to file: putty.log
2006-07-10 22:18:26 Server version: SSH-2.0-VShell_2_2_2_547 VShell
2006-07-10 22:18:26 We claim version: SSH-2.0-PuTTY-Release-0.54
2006-07-10 22:18:26 Using SSH protocol version 2
################

The "legal notice" was the reason why I did not change the authentication method of vshell from password to public key - which I would have liked, because we all who have to access these servers already have a ssh-key for tunneling and it would (using pageant) save us password entries many times a day. But when I switched to ssh I always failed authenticating due to the - it seems - unexpected legal notice.

HeinzKnoth wrote:

I used latest putty anyway ( putty 0.58 )

OK, but does it have the delay or not?

I used latest putty anyway ( putty 0.58 )
I start the two versions from the same xp-machine to the same target - so I guess the difference must be in the software? I could not find anything in the settings for the sessions which would be different between the two versions (in both cases i just used defaults)

Can you try to connect with the latest PuTTY?

hello
I installed version 3.82
it takes a long time to connect
when I tried 356 I had saved on a computer where I used it 2 years ago, it connected at once.
I can see no difference in any configuration I could think of.

from the logs:
version 382 needs 30 seconds to connect:

. 2006-07-08 11:49:23.214 Looking up host "defrwcp121dws36.dws.eur.deuba.com"
. 2006-07-08 11:49:53.741 Connecting to 0.1.0.1 port 22

version 356 (unfortunately no timestamps in log) does this at once:

. Looking up host "defrwcp121dws36.dws.eur.deuba.com"
. Connecting to 0.1.0.1 port 22

I use windows xp, the servers are windows2003, the server software is vshell.