I began encountering this problem right when I installed RH8, but have since had the problem with RH7.3 when I updated new packages. If you add the host that you are trying to connect to the database from, to the /etc/hosts file of the machine that is running the database, the error should stop. I posted a few threads in some linux and mysql groups and I'm not sure if the issue ever got a conctete resolution. If I remember correctly, the issue spawns from the host running the database not bieng able to properly resolve the hosts that are trying to connect to it. Someone said that the reason this was happening was because one of the redhat RPMS was altering /etc/nsswitch.conf and fouling something else. Those things are a little "fuzzy" for me so I'm not sure if that helps you, or possible someone else to formulate a concrete reason for this error. Hope I helped a little though. -------------------------------------------------