Apache2 has trouble handling (ip6-)localhost

[Andreas Olsson]

Binary package hint: apache2

This problem is related to running Apache2 in Intrepid.

At my workstation at home I like to tell Apache to "Listen localhost:80"
(This I do in ports.conf)

In Intrepid that results in the following error

root@hawat:~# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
 * Restarting web server apache2
... waiting (98)Address already in use: make_sock: could not bind to address 127.0.0.1:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
Unable to open logs

This error don't happen if I instead use "Listen 127.0.0.1:80".

It seems as if Apache's problems are related to how the default /etc/hosts in Intrepid defines ::1

In Hardy /etc/hosts says
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback

In Intrepid it is instead
::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback

If I change my /etc/hosts back to Hardy-style (::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback) I can use "Listen localhost:80" in Apache
without any problems.

[Mathias Gug (mathiaz)]

A default intrepid hosts files looks like:

::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback

I cannot reproduce your issue. How did you install the intrepid system?

[Andreas Olsson (andol)]

Actually, the default value of ::1 might just depend on whatever you use Ubiquity or the Debian Installer.

First of all I downloaded a fresh ubuntu-8.10-server-i386.iso, and followed the "Default install" instructions from http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Install/ServerWhole. That gave me a /etc/hosts containing
"::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback"

Then I downloaded a fresh ubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386.iso, and followed the "Ubiquity Whole Install" instructions from http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Install/DesktopWhole. That gave me a /etc/hosts containing
"::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback"

This finding actually matches my previous experience. I pretty much always use the Debian Installer, in one way of another. Hence it would make sense that I've only seen the ""::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback" version.

[lirel (m8r-lcodw5)]

as bug #397393 seems to be a duplicate of this bug, one of them should be marked as duplicate.
if 397393 becomes a duplicate this one should inherit its status, as it is currently confirmed.