Unable to get interface flags?

Anyone ever see errors like this in the exim_paniclog?

1997-04-17 17:17:53 0wI1NA-0004rF-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured
1997-04-17 17:18:33 0wI1Np-0004tC-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured
1997-04-17 17:23:05 0wI1SB-00055y-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured
1997-04-17 17:23:52 0wI1Sx-0005AB-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured
1997-04-17 17:26:54 0wI1Vu-0005Dw-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured
1997-04-17 17:27:13 0wI1WB-0005FC-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured
1997-04-17 17:29:09 0wI1Y3-0005S1-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured
1997-04-17 17:29:34 0wI1YU-0005UJ-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured
1997-04-17 17:38:42 0wI1hJ-0005Wf-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured
1997-04-17 17:38:50 0wI1hS-0005XP-00 Unable to get interface flags: 6 Device not configured

This is on a FreeBSD 2.1.x system. I guess Exim is having trouble
getting the interface addresses on this system. This system isn't very
special: ifconfig -a only show 3 interfaces, and only 2 IP addresses
total (one unused). This error only crops periodically. The system is
able to deliver mail ok, but sometimes seems to send mail to itself, if it
happens to be next available MX.

Anyways, I'm hoping the local_interfaces setting will work around this
particular problem.

Tom