Posted on 12/31/2006 6:57:19 AM PST by Loud Mime
...I don't get it.
me neither....stumped twice on a thread I started...good way to end the old year.
Dec(imal) 25 = Oct(al) 31
Does that mean you volunteer to translate for the rest of us?
localhost
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This article is about the loopback device IP address. For information on the file system computer program, see localhost (computer program).
The correct title of this article is localhost. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
In computing the term localhost refers to the location of the currently used system. It is a loopback device which is assigned the IP address 127.0.0.1 in IPv4, or ::1 in IPv6, which can be used by TCP/IP applications to talk to themselves if this is needed.
Being able to communicate with one's local machine as though it were a remote machine is useful for the purposes of testing, and also to contact services (such as game servers) located on one's own machine that are expected to be remote.
[edit] Related specification of IETF
IETF document "Special-Use IPv4 Addresses" (RFC 3330) describes the 127.0.0.0/8 as a reserved IPv4 address block for loopback.
This address block will not be allocated or assigned to any organization or ISP. Any packet with an address of this address block '127.0.0.0/8' cannot appear outside of a host system. Within a host system, the loopback interface is normally assigned the address '127.0.0.1' with subnetwork mask '255.0.0.0'. This makes the routing table of the local system set with a routing entry of '127.0.0.0/8', so that packets destined to any address of this '127.0.0.0/8' would be routed internally within the local system.
On the other hand, only one IPv6 address ::1/128 (that is to say, the address with a one at its least significant bit and zero otherwise) is specified as loopback address in IPv6 addressing architecture specification of RFC 3513.
In RFC 3513, the specification says: "The loopback address must not be used as the source address in IPv6 packets that are sent outside of a single node. An IPv6 packet with a destination address of loopback must never be sent outside of a single node and must never be forwarded by an IPv6 router. A packet received on an interface with destination address of loopback must be dropped."
[edit] Urban legend
An urban legend involving 127.0.0.1 is often circulated among the more technical computer related forums on the web. The story often involves an antagonist often referred to as “The World’s Worst Computer Hacker”. The story generally involves the Hacker hacking himself when tricked into using 127.0.0.1 as the IP address to hack into.
In the same vein, 127.0.0.1 is often used as an IP address given to inexperienced computer users as a practical joke. Another story involves a user who, after finding that pinging 127.0.0.1 pings his computer, tells all of his associates that his IP is 127.0.0.1
ping
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