After installation of xinetd-2.3.15-8.5.1 xinetd is refusing to start

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 Service Pack 2 (SLES 12 SP2)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 Service Pack 3 (SLES 12 SP3)

Situation

After updating to xinetd-2.3.15-8.5.1, under a few circumstances xinetd may refuse to start again.
In the /var/log/messages file you will see entries similar to the following:

[...]
xinetd[19029]: Reading included configuration file: /etc/xinetd.d/vsftpd [file=/etc/xinetd.d/vsftpd] [line=90]
xinetd[19029]: removing nrpe
xinetd[19029]: Must specify a server in check_mk
xinetd[19029]: Service time will use IPv6 or fallback to IPv4
xinetd[19029]: 19029 {general_handler} (19029) Unexpected signal: 11 (Segmentation fault)
xinetd[19029]: message repeated 9 times: [ 19029 {general_handler} (19029) Unexpected signal: 11 (Segmentation fault)]
xinetd[19029]: 19029 {bad_signal} Received 10 signals in 1 seconds. Exiting...

or, depending on the configured log level just:

[...]                                                              
xinetd[11472]: Reading included configuration file: /etc/xinetd.d/vsftpd [file=/etc/xinetd.d/vsftpd] [line=90]                                                         
systemd[1]: xinetd.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE                                                                                         
systemd[1]: xinetd.service: Unit entered failed state.                                                                                                                 
systemd[1]: xinetd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

Resolution

A maintenance update has been released meanwhile. Please install xinetd-2.3.15-8.8.1 to have this problem fixed.

Cause

This SIGSEV is caused by a change in the IPv6 handling of xinetd which introduced a bug.

Disclaimer

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