what is difference between loopback address and my own ip address?

Question

hi...what is difference between my loopback ip address 127.0.0.1 and my local ip address for example 192.168.1.2. where i can use my loopback address.......Thanks

Answer 1

Ethernet driver never puts out a packet on the wire for its own ip. It circumvents that in the TCP/IP stack.



If you bind a daemon to a loopback, it can't be accessed over the network. For instance, if you know MySQL is only providing service to your own box, there is no reason to bind it to the wildcard, you just bind it to the loopback address. This way you know your MySQL requests are only coming from your box.

Answer 2

The loopback (127.0.0.1) always refers to the current computer, while the other addresses (such as 192.168.1.2) are specific to the particular network interface which carries the address and in the case of DHCP assigned addresses may be allocated to different computers at different times.



The loopback address loops network connections back into the computer above the network driver level within the computer. If all network adapters are removed or disabled, the loopback address will still provide network access back into the computer.



I hope this helps.

Answer 3

A loopback address refers to a local address that is on the same machine. For example, if you were running a webserver on a computer and you have physical access, would you want to have the computer to route request traffic through the router (which assigned you this 192.168.1.2 address) back to the same computer? It would much more convenient to use http://localhost/ (localhost == 127.0.0.1).