Bug#360162: exim4-config: IPv6 localhost (::1) is not parsed properly

[Adam Borowski]

Package: exim4-config
Version: 4.60-5
Severity: normal

The debconf question says:

.----
| Enter a colon-separated list of IP-addresses to listen on.  You need to
| double the colons in IPv6 addresses (e.g. 5f03::1200::836f::::).
...
`----

However, it should really say "colon and space separated", or something in
this vein.  It is unobvious that you can have whitespace inside, and without
it some addresses get misparsed:

"127.0.0.1:::::1"
leads to
2006-03-31 01:57:56 Malformed IP address "127.0.0.1::" in local_interfaces

On the other hand, "127.0.0.1:0::::1" (with a redundant 0) or
"127.0.0.1 : ::::1" (separated by space-colon-space) works correctly.

The localhost address is the only typical IPv6 address that starts with a
double colon (as old-style v4-mapped addresses are deprecated); however, it
is impossible to parse such colon-separated lists in general.
Thus, the only solutions I can think of are:
a) documenting this caveat
b) allowing a different separator (with the added bonus of having IPv6
   addresses human-readable)


-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (101, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-1-686
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages exim4-config depends on:
ii  adduser                       3.85       Add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.4.72     Debian configuration management sy

exim4-config recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
  exim4/dc_noalias_regenerate: false
* exim4/dc_smarthost: 10.0.1.1
  exim4/dc_relay_domains:
* exim4/dc_relay_nets:
* exim4/mailname: umbar
* exim4/dc_local_interfaces: 127.0.0.1:0::::1
* exim4/dc_minimaldns: true
  exim4/exim3_upgrade: true
* exim4/dc_other_hostnames: umbar
* exim4/dc_eximconfig_configtype: mail sent by smarthost; received via SMTP or fetchmail
  exim4/no_config: true
* exim4/hide_mailname: true
* exim4/dc_postmaster: kilobyte
* exim4/dc_readhost: umbar.angband.pl
* exim4/use_split_config: false
  exim4/internal/exim4-config.reconfigure: false
  exim4/exim4-config-title: