Oracle on Linux - what is it looking up on DNS?

I have installed the early access release of Oracle 8 for Linux on my old 486 machine. Apart from running this database, this machine also grabs my mail and news and acts as my Internet router using a combination of IP masquerading and Diald.

Oracle actually works very well, despite the lowly machine. The problem is that whenever I connect to the database, either locally via svrmgrl or sqlplus, or remotely via SQL*Net, something does a DNS lookup that triggers Diald to pick up the phone and connect to the Internet.

I know it is a DNS lookup because I have traced it through Diald. If I edit /etc/resolv.conf to comment out the nameservers outside my network, the DNS lookup fails and I get an immediate connection. If I disable Diald, the DNS lookup goes ahead and I get a connection after a timeout of 180s approx.

Does anyone have any idea what it might be trying to resolve? Or does anyone have Oracle for Linux on a similar network but not on the machine that handles the IP masquerading?

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Thanks and regards,

Richard Senior
London, England

Mail: richard at r-senior spot demon spot co spot uk
WWW : http://www.r-senior.demon.co.uk/