The localhost is the standard hostname given to the address of the
loopback network interface. The IP address of the localhost is
127.0.0.1. The packets, destined to the localhost address, are
routed back internally by the IP layer of the TCPnet
system.
Using the loopback interface is useful for testing software, since
it bypasses local network interface hardware. Connecting to locally
hosted network services using loopback addresses puts less of a load
on network resources.
You can use the local host IP address to communicate between
different applications using the socket interface on the same
system, for example between a FTP server and FTP client. The FTP
client connects to FTP server and manage files on FTP server using
the localhost address. Of course the files are manipulated locally on
the same system. No IP packets actually appear on any of the hardware
interfaces.
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