Slow connections across VPN

Can you post the output of your log while trying to establish a vpn connection at the debugging level? (in the asdm go to Monitoring -> Logging -> set logging level to debug in the drop down -> click view)

Also unless there is a compelling reason to stay at 7.2(4) I would upgrade to the latest 8.x release. The 7.2 series had some pretty major issues.

EDIT

That error means that the interface the incoming vpn is setup on doesn't have a crypto-map applied.

if you were following the instructions there, you probably applied the crypto map like this:

crypto map outside_map interface outside

if you are testing on the same lan you would need to do this:

crypto map outside_map interface inside

Ugly i know but it'll let you test, then remove from the inside interface and you are good to go.

If that doesn't work, would you be willing put post your running config?

EDIT 2:

Ok, lets simplify this config a little. Try disconnecting the XP machine from the ASA. And also remove the 192.168.1.1 ip address and DHCP pool from the ASA. Then try to connect via the vpn.

sshd_conf

Just to be sure, you really mean /etc/ssh/sshd_config, not sshd_conf, right? I don't think that sshd_conf or sshd.conf are valid files for OpenSSH on Ubuntu, so editing them will do nothing.

I read somewhere that multiple nameserver entries here can cause problems.

Multiple nameservers in /etc/resolv.conf should not cause any problems, although if the first nameserver on the list is slow, it will affect your system. In fact it's a good practice to list redundant nameservers in /etc/resolv.conf in case one nameserver goes down.

Before you dig too deep, try to determine if this problem is on the client side or the server side.

On the client side, turn on SSH verbose mode. This will tell you the progress of the client connection to the server. If the connection from the client to the server is slow, you might see a delay before lines like "debug1: Connection established." or "debug1: Server accepts key: pkalg ssh-dss blen 435".

On the server side, tail the SSH logs in a separate window and watch the logs. You might want to increase the logging to "VERBOSE".

Update:

Don't use sshd_conf. Add the following to /etc/ssh/sshd_config , restart SSH and then let us know what happens.

UseDNS no

Change one thing at a time. If UseDNS doesn't work, then try "GSSAPIAuthentication no".