setuid programs hang when run by non-root users in RH9

[Matthew Fisher]

This problem didn't quit fit into the "install" list, so I thought I'd 
try my luck here...
Also, if this question is answered somewhere in the mailing list 
archives--forgive me;
I've spent the better part of six hours looking all over google results, 
etc. to no avail,
and only had the heart for a cursory glance here...

On a fresh install of Red Hat 9 (Shrike), with no 
patches/updates/compiled software,
when I'm logged in as root "ping", "su", and other setuid binaries run 
fine.  However,
when a normal user account tries to run any of them (and I've tried 
multiple accounts),
they hang.  Ctrl-c and Ctrl-z (etc.) have no effect.

The process list shows:
5151  pts/0  Z  0:00  [ping <defunct>]
5150  pts/0  T  0:00  [ping]

The only thing that can be done is open another session and kill the 
process (with SIGKILL).
Another oddity is that once it's killed, unlike other processes that 
immediately show "Killed",
the console that was running the setuid program returns, but reports 
that it received
"Suspended (signal)"    until I issue a   "fg" command--then shows
"Killed".

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Matthew