Really slow ssh connection

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Mon, Dec 10, 2007 at 11:14:01 +0000,
  Mike Martin <redtux1 at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
> I connect via IP address so I would have thought that dns and
> /etc/hosts should not come into it
> 
> As I said once connected everything is fast, its the initial
> connection that is the problem

DNS is used in ssh connections. The client keeps track of the server keys
by both ip address and domain name. So you might be waiting for DNS
connection attempts to time out before your ssh connection setup is
completed.