Bug#629610: exim4: misleading (?) "failed" message after paniclog warning

[Ross Boylan]

Package: exim4
Version: 4.72-6
Severity: normal

<terminal>
# /etc/init.d/exim4 restart
Stopping MTA for restart: exim4_listener.
Restarting MTA: exim4.
ALERT: exim paniclog /var/log/exim4/paniclog has non-zero size, mail system possibly broken ... failed!
</terminal>

I read the "... failed!" as meaning that the non-zero paniclog has
caused the restart to fail.  However, netstat -nlp indicates that exim
is running and listening on port 25, as expected.

The "failed" message seems inappropriate in this setting.

If it actually means something else is broken, it should indicate
what.

My paniclog does have stuff in it, and I have some mail that is
currently undeliverable because my local cyrus is not running.

This is on a virtual machine that had lenny installed and has been
dist-upgraded to squeeze.  I have fiddled a bit with the config files
so I can get mail out of the box.

-- Package-specific info:
Exim version 4.72 #1 built 31-Jan-2011 18:42:28
Copyright (c) University of Cambridge, 1995 - 2007
Berkeley DB: Berkeley DB 4.8.30: (April  9, 2010)
Support for: crypteq iconv() IPv6 GnuTLS move_frozen_messages DKIM
Lookups: lsearch wildlsearch nwildlsearch iplsearch cdb dbm dbmnz dnsdb dsearch nis nis0 passwd
Authenticators: cram_md5 plaintext
Routers: accept dnslookup ipliteral manualroute queryprogram redirect
Transports: appendfile/maildir/mailstore autoreply lmtp pipe smtp
Fixed never_users: 0
Size of off_t: 8
GnuTLS compile-time version: 2.8.6
GnuTLS runtime version: 2.8.6
Configuration file is /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated
# /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
#
# Edit this file and /etc/mailname by hand and execute update-exim4.conf
# yourself or use 'dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config'
#
# Please note that this is _not_ a dpkg-conffile and that automatic changes
# to this file might happen. The code handling this will honor your local
# changes, so this is usually fine, but will break local schemes that mess
# around with multiple versions of the file.
#
# update-exim4.conf uses this file to determine variable values to generate
# exim configuration macros for the configuration file.
#
# Most settings found in here do have corresponding questions in the
# Debconf configuration, but not all of them.
#
# This is a Debian specific file

dc_eximconfig_configtype='internet'
dc_other_hostnames='vm-lenny.kvm.lan'
dc_local_interfaces=''
dc_readhost=''
dc_relay_domains='markov.biostat.ucsf.edu'
dc_minimaldns='false'
dc_relay_nets=''
dc_smarthost=''
CFILEMODE='644'
dc_use_split_config='true'
dc_hide_mailname=''
dc_mailname_in_oh='true'
dc_localdelivery='mail_spool'
mailname:vm-lenny.kvm.lan

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0.1
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages exim4 depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.36.1   Debian configuration management sy
ii  exim4-base                    4.72-6     support files for all Exim MTA (v4
ii  exim4-daemon-light            4.72-6     lightweight Exim MTA (v4) daemon

exim4 recommends no packages.

exim4 suggests no packages.

-- debconf information:
  exim4/drec: