MySQL crash on remote access

[Ted Roche]

I'd appreciate some guidance on how to troubleshoot what I think is a
network configuration issue.

I've installed RedHat 8.0 and all of it's updates onto a wireless laptop,
including MySQL. This is a prototype machine inside the firewall, so no
firewall software installed.

MySQL was installed from the RedHat-provided RPMs, and updated to the latest
version. It appears to be running normally from the local machine:
mysqladmin and mysql return normal values.

I am trying to access the MySQL table remotely from a Wintel box. The MyODBC
2.50 (stable) latest release was installed, and I have accessed MySQL DB's
on other machines before successfully. When I attempt to access the new DB
(with proper permissions for user 'Guest' from all hosts), the MySQL
database crashes, with the remote machine getting an error 2013,  "Lost
connection to
MySQL server during query." The local mysqld.log file shows:

Number of processes running now: 1
mysqld process hanging, pid 3354 - killed
030116 10:22:58 nysqld restarted
usr/libexec/mysqld: ready for connections

Searching Google for this brought up a closed Bugzilla report on the Red Hat
site
(http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cache:HtegkiFgqk0C:bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzi
l
la/show_bug.cgi%3Fid%3D75128+mysqld+process+hanging&hl=en&ie=UTF-8).
Changing the thread-stack variable seemed to have no effect, but adding the
hostname of the calling machine to the local /etc/hosts file did cure the
problem, from that one machine. Other machines, not listed in the hosts
file, continue to crash MySQL.

So. I suspect the problem is a network configuration issue, where MySQL is
crashing on trying to resolve the hostname of the incoming request. I am a
Linux newbie, and not a networking heavyweight, so I'd appreciate some
pointers on how hostname resolution works and what I might try to, er,
resolve the problem. Thanks in advance!