If we can't rely on error messages (which seems like the best approach -- then we will test this aspect of the tool as well), we should be able to write a small tool that tries to bind a particular port. This tool could replace InetUtils' use of netstat.
I wrote such a tool once, port-open-p, but never had time to polish it up and commit it. I think we should do this after release, but then I'm not in a hurry. Such a tool would be useful, but syslogd should exist gracefully if it can't open a port and report an error even if we have such a tool.
