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Thursday, 23 May 2013

What’s the Difference Between 127.0.0.0 and 127.0.0.1?




Sometimes the most elementary of questions yield teachable moments; read on as we delve into how a single digit change between 127.0.0.0 to 127.0.0.1 offers a chance to look at network topology.
The Question
What’s the Difference Between 127.0.0.0 and 127.0.0.1?
I know that both are loopback IPs, but they have another ip mask.
What’s the difference between them? Can they be used interchangeably?
===========================================================================

IPv4 routes
===========================================================================
Active routes:
Destination               Mask          Gateway        Interface Metric
      0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0      192.168.1.1      192.168.1.6     26
[...]
    127.0.0.0        255.0.0.0         On-link         127.0.0.1    306
    127.0.0.1  255.255.255.255         On-link         127.0.0.1    306
What kind of information can we tease out from this table?