Comment 38 for bug 653405

In case it's relevant here:

I installed rabbitmq today (2013-02-20).
 - My machine's hostname is resolved also before installation, and it didn't change since the server was first installed few days ago.
 - in any case, i revised my /etc/hosts - it seems to be 100% ok (just in case)
 - i'm on Ubuntu 12.04, 64bit.
 - it's hosted inside VirtualBox
 - The log files mentioned in the files are empty (0 bytes)
 - erl_crash.dump is also empty.
 - I repeated the installation process (apt-get remove, autoremove, clean, autoclean, and then install) , to no avail.

after installation i (re)tried to start the server manually:
# service rabbitmq-server start
Starting rabbitmq-server: FAILED - check /var/log/rabbitmq/startup_{log, _err}
rabbitmq-server.
#

according to someone here, i ran "rabbitmqctl status", and got all funny messages:
# rabbitmqctl status
{error_logger,{{2013,2,20},{13,3,37}},"Too short cookie string",[]}
{error_logger,{{2013,2,20},{13,3,37}},crash_report,[[{initial_call,{auth,init,['Argument__1']}},{pid,<0.19.0>},{registered_name,[]},{error_info,{exit,{"Too short cookie string",[{auth,init_cookie,0},{auth,init,1},{gen_server,init_it,6},{proc_lib,init_p_do_apply,3}]},[{gen_server,init_it,6},{proc_lib,init_p_do_apply,3}]}},{ancestors,[net_sup,kernel_sup,<0.9.0>]},{messages,[]},{links,[<0.17.0>]},{dictionary,[]},{trap_exit,true},{status,running},{heap_size,987},{stack_size,24},{reductions,827}],[]]}
{error_logger,{{2013,2,20},{13,3,37}},supervisor_report,[{supervisor,{local,net_sup}},{errorContext,start_error},{reason,{"Too short cookie string",[{auth,init_cookie,0},{auth,init,1},{gen_server,init_it,6},{proc_lib,init_p_do_apply,3}]}},{offender,[{pid,undefined},{name,auth},{mfargs,{auth,start_link,[]}},{restart_type,permanent},{shutdown,2000},{child_type,worker}]}]}
{error_logger,{{2013,2,20},{13,3,37}},supervisor_report,[{supervisor,{local,kernel_sup}},{errorContext,start_error},{reason,shutdown},{offender,[{pid,undefined},{name,net_sup},{mfargs,{erl_distribution,start_link,[]}},{restart_type,permanent},{shutdown,infinity},{child_type,supervisor}]}]}
{error_logger,{{2013,2,20},{13,3,37}},std_info,[{application,kernel},{exited,{shutdown,{kernel,start,[normal,[]]}}},{type,permanent}]}
{"Kernel pid terminated",application_controller,"{application_start_failure,kernel,{shutdown,{kernel,start,[normal,[]]}}}"}
Kernel pid terminated (application_controller) ({application_start_failure,kernel,{shutdown,{kernel,start,[normal,[]]}}})

still unresolved, and no workaround found.
it's probably another misreported bug, and i'm still looking for solutions.