gethostbyname seems to return ipaddresses in reverse order for local host name on a multihomed machine.

Can you show that?

use Data::Dump;
dd [ gethostbyname 'localhost' ];
__END__
["VOL11", "", 2, 4, "\x7F\0\0\1"]
[download]

I don't expect that gethostbyname is returning anything other than what gethostbyname is documented to return