Bug#35731: libc6: reorder on in /etc/host.conf does not work

[clameter@debian.org]

Package: libc6
Version: 2.1.1-0.1

/etc/host.conf contains

reorder on
order hosts,bind
multi off

this is supposed to order the IPs for a multihomed host so that the local
network is preferred. Manpage of host.conf:

     reorder
              Valid values are on and off.  If set to on, resolv+
              will  attempt  to  reorder  host  addresses so that
              local addresses (i.e.,  on  the  same  subnet)  are
              listed  first when a gethostbyname(3) is performed.
              Reordering is done for  all  lookup  methods.   The
              default value is off.


The host hur has to ips 10.0.0.2 and 206.1.27.3. If I ping hur two times the
IP alternates instead of being always the same:

dept:/home/clameter# ping hur
PING hur.fuller.edu (10.0.0.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=1.9 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=1.5 ms

--- hur.fuller.edu ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 1.5/1.7/1.9 ms
dept:/home/clameter# 

hur is on the same network as dept

-- System Information
Debian Release: potato
Kernel Version: Linux cyrix200 2.2.5-ac3 #7 Thu Apr 1 20:35:20 PST 1999 i586 unknown

Versions of the packages libc6 depends on:
ii  ldso            1.9.10-1.2     The Linux dynamic linker, library and utilit