Bug#465572: apt: http acquire method misbehaves on 404 from non-keepalive Server

["Anthony L. Awtrey" <tony@awtrey.com>]

Hi there,

This issue may be reproduceable on a lighttpd server hosting a preseed 
installer repository. We have an in-house mirror + custom packages for 
doing debian installs and noted intermittent failures that looked like a 
problem with lighttpd at first:

Mar 16 11:58:28 in-target: E: Method http has died unexpectedly!

Poking around online revealed issues like this:

http://redmine.lighttpd.net/issues/1477
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-629487.html

After poking around in lighttpd and doing network traces, I can't see 
where lighttpd is failing. I am beginning to suspect that this issue is 
the culprit. This is *not* happening during the early part of the 
installer where anna is downloading udebs. This is happening during a 
package installation performed in the late_command utilizing apt-get to 
download a large number of packages from the lightppd server hosting the 
mirror.

Hope this helps. I'll try the patch to see if it makes a difference for me.

Tony