[opensuse] ssh weirdness - ssh connects then hangs after transferring a few bytes

Hi,

Has anyone else out there encountered problems with OpenSSH in opensuse 10.2?

I'm having a weird problem connecting to certain servers: ssh connects
absolutely fine, but attempting to run any commands once connected
causes the session to hang. My investigations so far would seem to
indicate that the session hang occurs when more than n bytes are
transferred (not sure how many bytes, but a very small number)

For example:

ssh me@xxxxxxxxxxxx -> connects
ls /directory/with/very/few/files -> works
ls /usr/bin -> causes session to hang (or anything that might require
transfer of more than a few bytes)

... running `ls /directory/with/very/few/files` multiple times also
causes the session to hang.

Initially, I thought it might be something to do with an
incompatibility between versions of OpenSSH on the client and host
machines: suse 10.2 running OpenSSH 4.4p1 and the hosts on which I am
experiencing problems all run OpenSSH 3.9p1 (RHEL4). However, the
connection problems do not occur consistently with OpenSSH 3.9p1 as
there are other servers running this to which I can connect without
any strange behaviour.

The elements which seem to lead to SSH hanging are:
1. OpenSSH 4.4p1
2. Combined with some (unknown) router or server configuration at the host's end

Reverting to an older version of OpenSSH (or another distro) "fixes"
the problem ... however, I would rather use opensuse and would rather
not have to rip out the default ssh and ssl in order to do so.

Has anyone experienced similar problems? Does anyone know what
settings (either on client or host machine) might lead to this
problem? Does anyone know a fix?! :D

I've googled this subject to death over the last few days, but can't
seem to find any answer ... it's beginning to get a bit desperate :(
... and the problem is difficult to debug because I can't get an SSH
connection long enough to get any useful information from the host!

Any comments/tips/suggestions etc very gratefully received.

Cheers,

Chris
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