What s the whole point of localhost hosts and ports at all

Question

I m totally new to this web development stuff  So I see things like  localhost  all the time and ask myself  What s that    I feel to know what a  host  actually is  Something that executes something  So my mac is the host for everything that runs on it  So  localhost  is actually just my mac  Can I have also other hosts  like  otherhost  or  betterhost     So when I write in my browser  http   localhost 80 mysite index php  this  localhost  thing tells the browser to look on my machine for that stuff rather than online   Maybe someone can clear this up a little bit  -

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Regarding you question about betterhost and such  see host  basically every IP address is a host   I suggest you start reading-up from host and only than go on to localhost  which is a type of host

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In computer networking  localhost  meaning  this computer   is the standard hostname given to the address of the loopback network interface    Localhost always translates to the loopback IP address 127 0 0 1 in IPv4   It is also used instead of the hostname of a computer  For example  directing a web browser installed on a system running an HTTP server to http   localhost will display the home page of the local web site   Source  Wikipedia - Localhost     The  80 part is the TCP port  You can consider these ports as communications endpoints on a particular IP address  in the case of localhost - 127 0 0 1   The IANA is responsible for maintaining the official assignments of standard port numbers for specific services  Port 80 happens to be the standard port for HTTP

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Localhost generally refers to the machine you re looking at   On most machines localhost resolves to the IP address 127 0 0 1 which is the loopback address

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Well  others have given a good definition of  localhost    It is kind of a defacto for the text representation of the local IP 127 0 0 1   You can have  betterhost    otherhost    someotherhost  if you use a DNS server that can translate it to working IP addresses  OR by modifying the host file  But that s another topic for another day or better day   P

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Everyone seems to focus on the host part of your questions  Ports are used to be able to run several servers  for example for different purposes such as file sharing  web serving  printing  etc  from the same machine  one single IP address

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In computer networking  a network host  Internet host  host  or Internet node is a computer connected to the Internet - or more generically - to any type of data network  A network host can host information resources as well as application software for providing network services   -Wikipedia  Local host is a special name given to the local machine or that you are working on  ussually its IP Address is 127 0 0 1  However you can define it to be anything   There are multiple Network services running on each host for example Apache IIS  Http Web Server  Mail Clients  FTP clients etc  Each service has a specific port associated with it  You can think of it as this   In every home  there is one mailbox and multiple people  The mailbox is a host  Your own home mailbox is a localhost  Each person in a home has a room  All letters for that person are sent to his room  hence the room number is a port

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Yes  localhost just means that you are talking to the webserver om the same machine that you are currently using   Other servers are contacted through either their IP-address or a given name

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Some databases are designed to communicate over the web using ports assigned by the Internet Assigned Number Authority  IANA  and when run on individual PC use the ports with localhost  Some common databases with their default ports  the defualts can usually be overridden    Port Database  1433 Microsoft SQL Server https   support microsoft com en-us kb 287932  3306 MySQL https   dev mysql com doc refman 4 1 en connecting html  5432 PostgreSQL  1527 Apache Derby  database   Some web servers and databases are paired together such as Apache MySQL  as in LAMP or XXAMP  or MS Internet Information Server  IIS  MS SQL Server  IIS SQL Server  in which case you have to be concerned with both the port of the database and the web server -- a common example of this is WordPress which uses Apache MySQL

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Port  In simple language    Port  is a number used by a particular software to identify its data coming from internet    Each software  like Skype  Chrome  Youtube has its own port number and that s how they know which internet data is for itself   Socket   IP address and Port   together is called  Socket   It is used by another computer to send data to one particular computer s particular software   IP address is used to identify the computer and Port is to identify the software such as IE  Chrome  Skype etc   In every home  there is one mailbox and multiple people  The mailbox is a host  Your own home mailbox is a localhost  Each person in a home has a room  All letters for that person are sent to his room  hence the room number is a port

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I heard a good description  parable  which illustrates ports as different delivery points for a large building  e g  Post office for letters and small parcels  Goods In for large deliveries   pallets  Doors for people

[localhost] What's the whole point of "localhost", hosts and ports at all?

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