Day6 There's No Place Like 127.0.0.1
June 16, 2023•332 words
Have you seen the bumper stickers that say, "There's No Place Like 127.0.0.1"? When I see them, I just shake my head and sigh.
Nothing like a little geek humor, eh? Clever sticking in those numbers. Only the clueful with know that "127.0.0.1" is an IP address. Not those ignorant schlubs.
For those who don't know, an IP address is made up of 4 integers from 0 to 255 inclusive, separated by dots (.) (If you're using IPv4, which almost the whole world uses.) So 127.0.0.1 looks like an IP address and it can be used as an IP address. Any computer connected to the internet has one or more IP addresses. In fact, 127.0.0.1 must be the most common IP address.
According to the standards, 127.0.0.1 is reserved for a computer to refer to itself. To express it in words, geeks will call it "localhost". If I go to a web browser and entered "localhost" where you can type in an address, it will open the default page for the web server on my computer.
Why do I have a web server on my personal computer? I don't know. Why wouldn't I have one? I always have a web server on my computer.
Anyway, if you read the bumper sticker, it says, "There's no place like localhost." That makes me laugh. When we show off, sometimes we are showing off something that we don't intend to show.
On Linux (and most OSs that use terminals), each user has a home directory. The path can be different on different Linux computers, but you can always get by changing the directory to your home directory.
cd ~
Wherever you are, that command will take you to your home directory.
I want to order some bumper stickers. They will say
There's No Place Like 127.0.0.1 ~
That's better!