Here is my system:

bill@Bill2:~$ lsb_release -a
LSB Version: core-9.20170808ubuntu1-noarch:security-9.20170808ubuntu1-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.10
Release: 18.10
Codename: cosmic

My Droplet has been running very smoothly for many months. I do a lot of software development on it as well as hosting a minimal web site.
Suddenly, this morning (Christmas morning, can you believe it), things started going haywire. Specifically, the sudo command now has a very long timeout, and systemctl does the same.

Here is a timed example of a simple systemctl command:

bill@Bill2:~$ time systemctl status caddy.service
Failed to get properties: Connection timed out

real 1m30.065s
user 0m0.003s
sys 0m0.007s

Notice the 1 ½ minute time out. Also, note the weak reference to a connection timing out (there is no indication of what connection that is).

Here is an example of a simple application of sudo:

bill@Bill2:~$ time sudo ls /root
[sudo] password for bill:
Desktop Documents Downloads Music Pictures Public Templates Videos snap

real 1m41.903s
user 0m0.010s
sys 0m0.009s

Again notice the long timeout. Below is a simple attempt to use strace for additional information. I have just included the tail end of the strace output because it refers to a timeout while attempting to access a server.

bill@Bill2:~$ strace systemctl status
…
writev(2, [{iovbase=“Failed to read server status: Co”…, iovlen=50}, {iovbase=“\n”, iovlen=1}], 2) = 51
close(3Failed to read server status: Connection timed out
) = 0
dup2(6, 1) = 1
close(6) = 0
dup2(7, 2) = 2
close(7) = 0
kill(7853, SIGCONT) = 0
waitid(PPID, 7853, {sisigno=SIGCHLD, sicode=CLDEXITED, sipid=7853, siuid=1000, sistatus=0, siutime=0, sistime=0}, WEXITED, NULL) = 0
— SIGCHLD {sisigno=SIGCHLD, sicode=CLDEXITED, sipid=7853, siuid=1000, sistatus=0, siutime=0, sistime=0} —
exitgroup(0) = ?
+++ exited with 0 +++

Here is a strace example of a simple ls command:

bill@Bill2:~$ strace ls /root
…
sendmsg(3, {msgname=NULL, msgnamelen=0, msgiov=[{iovbase=“\0AUTH EXTERNAL ”, iovlen=15}, {iovbase=“31303030”, iovlen=8}, {iovbase=“\r\nNEGOTIATEUNIXFD\r\nBEGIN\r\n”, iovlen=28}], msgiovlen=3, msgcontrollen=0, msgflags=0}, MSGDONTWAIT|MSGNOSIGNAL) = 51
gettid() = 8146
getrandom(“\x93\xcd\x9d\x13\x0d\x32\xdd\x75\x57\x69\x54\x30\x3d\x9e\xfd\xb0”, 16, GRNDNONBLOCK) = 16
gettid() = 8146
ioctl(1, TCGETS, {B38400 opost isig icanon echo …}) = 0
ioctl(2, TCGETS, {B38400 opost isig icanon echo …}) = 0
ioctl(1, TIOCGWINSZ, {wsrow=35, wscol=100, wsxpixel=0, wsypixel=0}) = 0
ioctl(1, TIOCGWINSZ, {wsrow=35, wscol=100, wsxpixel=0, wsypixel=0}) = 0
pipe2([4, 5], OCLOEXEC) = 0
rtsigprocmask(SIGSETMASK, ~[RTMIN RT1], [], 8) = 0
clone(childstack=NULL, flags=CLONECHILDCLEARTID|CLONECHILDSETTID|SIGCHLD, childtidptr=0x7fbd25671c10) = 8147
rtsigprocmask(SIGSETMASK, [], NULL, 8) = 0
fcntl(1, FDUPFDCLOEXEC, 3) = 6
dup2(5, 1) = 1
fcntl(2, FDUPFDCLOEXEC, 3) = 7
dup2(5, 2) = 2
close(4) = 0
close(5) = 0
prlimit64(0, RLIMITNOFILE, {rlimcur=16*1024, rlimmax=16*1024}, NULL) = 0
uname({sysname=“Linux”, nodename=“Bill2”, …}) = 0
recvmsg(3, {msgnamelen=0}, MSGDONTWAIT|MSGCMSGCLOEXEC) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
ppoll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 1, {tvsec=89, tvnsec=997330000}, NULL, 8

While watching the output I noticed the terminal cursor sitting on the ppoll system call as if the sudo software, or some library, is waiting for an Internet response. I also notice a reference to OAUTH at the beginning of the dump.

I will continue to investigate, but I think I’m going to need your help.