diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index c046e3c..288a687 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -5,6 +5,10 @@
   - building with -DUSE_PCRE should include PCRE headers and not regex.h. At
     least on Solaris, this caused the libc's regex primitives to be used instead
     of PCRE, which caused trouble on group references. This is now fixed.
+  - delayed the quiet mode during startup so that most of the startup alerts can
+    be displayed even in quiet mode.
+  - display an alert when a listener has no address, invalid or no port, or when
+    there are no enabled listeners upon startup.
 
 2005/10/09 : 1.2.7rc (1.1.33rc)
   - second batch of socklen_t changes.
diff --git a/haproxy.c b/haproxy.c
index 723c15f..ad3e20e 100644
--- a/haproxy.c
+++ b/haproxy.c
@@ -402,6 +402,7 @@
 #define	MODE_QUIET	16
 #define	MODE_CHECK	32
 #define	MODE_VERBOSE	64
+#define	MODE_STARTING	128
 
 /* server flags */
 #define SRV_RUNNING	1	/* the server is UP */
@@ -866,14 +867,15 @@
 
 
 /*
- * Displays the message on stderr with the date and pid.
+ * Displays the message on stderr with the date and pid. Overrides the quiet
+ * mode during startup.
  */
 void Alert(char *fmt, ...) {
     va_list argp;
     struct timeval tv;
     struct tm *tm;
 
-    if (!(global.mode & MODE_QUIET) || (global.mode & MODE_VERBOSE)) {
+    if (!(global.mode & MODE_QUIET) || (global.mode & (MODE_VERBOSE | MODE_STARTING))) {
 	va_start(argp, fmt);
 
 	gettimeofday(&tv, NULL);
@@ -1040,6 +1042,7 @@
 	/* 2) look for the addr/port delimiter, it's the last colon. */
 	if ((range = strrchr(str, ':')) == NULL) {
 	    Alert("Missing port number: '%s'\n", str);
+	    goto fail;
 	}	    
 
 	*range++ = 0;
@@ -1051,6 +1054,7 @@
 
 	    if (!inet_pton(ss.ss_family, str, &((struct sockaddr_in6 *)&ss)->sin6_addr)) {
 		Alert("Invalid server address: '%s'\n", str);
+		goto fail;
 	    }
 	}
 	else {
@@ -1065,6 +1069,7 @@
 		
 		if ((he = gethostbyname(str)) == NULL) {
 		    Alert("Invalid server name: '%s'\n", str);
+		    goto fail;
 		}
 		else
 		    ((struct sockaddr_in *)&ss)->sin_addr =
@@ -1081,7 +1086,19 @@
 	    end = atol(range);
 	}
 
+	port = atol(range);
+
+	if (port < 1 || port > 65535) {
+	    Alert("Invalid port '%d' specified for address '%s'.\n", port, str);
+	    goto fail;
+	}
+
+	if (end < 1 || end > 65535) {
+	    Alert("Invalid port '%d' specified for address '%s'.\n", end, str);
+	    goto fail;
+	}
+
-	for (port = atol(range); port <= end; port++) {
+	for (; port <= end; port++) {
 	    l = (struct listener *)calloc(1, sizeof(struct listener));
 	    l->next = tail;
 	    tail = l;
@@ -1096,6 +1113,9 @@
     } /* end while(next) */
     free(dupstr);
     return tail;
+ fail:
+    free(dupstr);
+    return NULL;
 }
 
 
@@ -6029,8 +6049,13 @@
 	curproxy->next = proxy;
 	proxy = curproxy;
 	curproxy->id = strdup(args[1]);
-	if (strchr(args[2], ':') != NULL)
+
+	/* parse the listener address if any */
+	if (*args[2]) {
 	    curproxy->listen = str2listener(args[2], curproxy->listen);
+	    if (!curproxy->listen)
+		return -1;
+	}
 
 	/* set default values */
 	curproxy->state = defproxy.state;
@@ -6130,6 +6155,8 @@
 	    return -1;
 	}
 	curproxy->listen = str2listener(args[1], curproxy->listen);
+	if (!curproxy->listen)
+	    return -1;
 	return 0;
     }
     else if (!strcmp(args[0], "monitor-net")) {  /* set the range of IPs to ignore */
@@ -7352,7 +7379,12 @@
 	    curproxy = curproxy->next;
 	    continue;
 	}
+
+	if (curproxy->listen == NULL) {
+	    Alert("parsing %s : listener %s has no listen address. Please either specify a valid address on the <listen> line, or use the <bind> keyword.\n", file, curproxy->id);
+	    cfgerr++;
+	}
-	if ((curproxy->mode != PR_MODE_HEALTH) &&
+	else if ((curproxy->mode != PR_MODE_HEALTH) &&
 	    !(curproxy->options & (PR_O_TRANSP | PR_O_BALANCE)) &&
 	    (*(int *)&curproxy->dispatch_addr.sin_addr == 0)) {
 	    Alert("parsing %s : listener %s has no dispatch address and is not in transparent or balance mode.\n",
@@ -7564,7 +7596,8 @@
 	    argv++; argc--;
     }
 
-    global.mode = (arg_mode & (MODE_DAEMON | MODE_VERBOSE | MODE_QUIET | MODE_CHECK | MODE_DEBUG));
+    global.mode = MODE_STARTING | /* during startup, we want most of the alerts */
+		  (arg_mode & (MODE_DAEMON | MODE_VERBOSE | MODE_QUIET | MODE_CHECK | MODE_DEBUG));
 
     if (!cfg_cfgfile)
 	usage(old_argv);
@@ -7858,12 +7891,6 @@
     FILE *pidfile = NULL;
     init(argc, argv);
 
-    if (global.mode & MODE_QUIET) {
-	/* detach from the tty */
-	fclose(stdin); fclose(stdout); fclose(stderr);
-	close(0); close(1); close(2);
-    }
-
     signal(SIGQUIT, dump);
     signal(SIGUSR1, sig_soft_stop);
     signal(SIGHUP, sig_dump_state);
@@ -7879,8 +7906,23 @@
     signal(SIGPIPE, SIG_IGN);
 #endif
 
+    /* start_proxies() sends an alert when it fails. */
     if (start_proxies() < 0)
 	exit(1);
+
+    if (listeners == 0) {
+	Alert("[%s.main()] No enabled listener found (check the <listen> keywords) ! Exiting.\n", argv[0]);
+	exit(1);
+    }
+
+    /* MODE_QUIET can inhibit alerts and warnings below this line */
+
+    global.mode &= ~MODE_STARTING;
+    if (global.mode & MODE_QUIET) {
+	/* detach from the tty */
+	fclose(stdin); fclose(stdout); fclose(stderr);
+	close(0); close(1); close(2);
+    }
 
     /* open log & pid files before the chroot */
     if (global.mode & MODE_DAEMON && global.pidfile != NULL) {