Bug#610918: exim4: Fails to start when kernel does not support ipv6

[Andreas Metzler]

On 2011-01-24 Samuel Thibault <sthibault at debian.org> wrote:
> Package: exim4
> Version: 4.72-3
> Severity: important

> Hello,

> Nowadays, the exim4 package enables listening on ipv6 by default:
> /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf:
> dc_local_interfaces='127.0.0.1 ; ::1'

> However, this fails when the kernel does not support ipv6 (or it was
> disabled thanks to ipv6.disable=1 or disable_ipv6=1):

> 2011-01-24 00:54:28 IPv6 socket creation failed: No such file or
> directory

> and if I retry to start, as well as further retries:

> 2011-01-24 00:55:28 IPv6 socket creation failed: Address family not
> supported by protocol

> exim4 should probably not completely fail when such EAFNOSUPPORT error
> is returned.
[...]

I tend to disagree. If I explicitely tell exim to do the impossible,
failing safely instead of hiding the error by starting anyway is not
the worst choice.

cu andreas