[Dovecot] Dovecot Or Debian, Boot-Time Error "Can't assign requested address"

[Sabahattin Gucukoglu]

Hi all,

I have a really weird problem, which for now I have solved by just binding to the IPv6 wildcard address "::".

Using the latest packages from Debian unstable (1.x series), I set up a tunnel with tunnelbroker.net for IPv6.  I assign two of the delegated addresses in my /48 using IP aliases in /etc/network/interfaces to my ethernet interface (eth0 and eth0:1).  All other servers start and run, binding to the primary address (eth0) assigned.  The packet forwarder is not necessary, so it isn't turned on using sysctl.  But Dovecot will only start if I launch it using the init script after boot.  Until then, in syslog there is always:
Fatal: listen(2001:470:xxxx::1): Can't assign requested address

Anybody have the slightest clue what's going on here?  Debian bug, or Dovecot?  I suspect some problem with initscript order, yet inspection shows no apparent problem; network starts up before services.  Very, very odd.

Cheers,
Sabahattin