This patch should install into most muds without much trouble, since it doesn't change any code that is normally modified. If it doesn't go in smoothly, it should be easy enough to figure out how to hand patch the rejected protions. The purpose of this patch is to install a hostname cache to eliminate most of the lag associated with dns lookups. Hostnames are looked up ever time a player connects to your mud, and unless you've got a good nameserver, this can take quite a while, and may be the cause of some of your lag. Once you install this patch, each host will be looked up once, and then all subsequent connects from that host will skip the lookup and get the name from the cache. This release is missing some features it should have, and so will require some maintenence. Dynamic addresses will begin to clutter the cache if you don't keep up with them. Here's how to deal with them: FIrst, use the "dns list" command to see the hostnames you've got cached. Dynamic address will show up in a group, looking something like this: 207.55.174.36 dal36.dhc.net 207.55.174.42 dal42.dhc.net 207.55.174.57 dal57.dhc.net FIrst you have to remove these hosts from the cache. It's easy tho. Just type "dns del 207.55.174" and you'll see something like this: Deleting dal36.dhc.net Deleting dal36.dhc.net Deleting dal36.dhc.net Now you can add a new entry. Type "dns add 207.55.174 dhc.net". You'll just get an "OK!". Next time I log into your mud, you'll see something like 36.dhc.net if I log in using that port. You could also "dns add 207.55.174 sammy.com" to give me a personal hostname, in which case I'd show up as coming from 36.sammy.com. The 36 is there so you can check for multiplaying. Keep in mind that some university sites have several shell servers that may look like dynamic ppp addresses. Another way you can fine tune your system is to adjust the DNS_HASH_NUM in db.h. I pretty much picked 257 at random, but it's given me a very good spread on the 410 hostnames I've cached. If you've got the motivation, you could improve the system for dealing with dynamic addresses. I haven't had the time to do it myself, and probably won't bother. Have fun. Sam samedi@dhc.net