What is the purpose of the Microsoft Loopback Adapter?

Question

Just as the question says, what is the Microsoft Loopback Adapter, and as a bonus, what scenerios as a developer would it be useful? I\'ve noticed it\'s been required when i

Answer 1

Well, the best answer I can give you is a few links. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopback The key sentence here is

"Any traffic that a computer program sends to the loopback interface is immediately received on the same interface."

http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/software/erx/erx50x/swconfig-system-basics/html/system-mgmt15.html This may be a little more obscure if you don't know networking well.

Basically, it's a fake network interface, useful for tests and stability. In practice, most likely something you'll never have to worry about (or you'd already know about it!)