startup fails because "localhost" cannot be resolved

[Fox]

Binary package hint: postgresql-8.3

It started happening after an upgrade. Doesn't seem to have any efferct on anything as far as I can tell, except for a minor annoyance when trying to upgrade, as it reports as incomplete.

The upgrade shows this:

fox@fox-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  pcsx
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Setting up postgresql-8.3 (8.3.3-0ubuntu0.8.04) ...
 * Starting PostgreSQL 8.3 database server * The PostgreSQL server failed to start. Please check the log output:
2008-06-27 21:09:18 EDT LOG: could not load root certificate file "root.crt": no SSL error reported
2008-06-27 21:09:18 EDT DETAIL: Will not verify client certificates.
2008-06-27 21:09:18 EDT LOG: could not translate host name "localhost", service "5432" to address: Name or service not known
2008-06-27 21:09:18 EDT WARNING: could not create listen socket for "localhost"
2008-06-27 21:09:18 EDT FATAL: could not create any TCP/IP sockets
                                                                         [fail]
invoke-rc.d: initscript postgresql-8.3, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing postgresql-8.3 (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of postgresql:
 postgresql depends on postgresql-8.3; however:
  Package postgresql-8.3 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing postgresql (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 postgresql-8.3
 postgresql
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
fox@fox-laptop:~$

and every once in a while an error message pops up in the corner saying it crashed. I can't seem to find any reason that it crashes...

ProblemType: Package
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Jun 27 20:46:54 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
ErrorMessage:
 ErrorMessage: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Package: postgresql-8.3 8.3.3-0ubuntu0.8.04
PackageArchitecture: i386
SourcePackage: postgresql-8.3
Title: package postgresql-8.3 8.3.3-0ubuntu0.8.04 failed to install/upgrade:
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-16-generic i686

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

It seems your system cannot resolve "localhost"? It should be in /etc/hosts, did you change that manually? Can you please attach your /etc/hosts?