# IP Address to point to my computer

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-address-to-point-to-my-computer/23097>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 21, 2000, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-address-to-point-to-my-computer/23097 "2000-06-21T15:38:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Stevie\_Rave\_On](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Stevie\_Rave\_On](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stevie_Rave_On)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2000, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-address-to-point-to-my-computer/23097/1 "2000-06-21T15:38:50Z")

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Does anyone know what the IP Address is to point to your own machine.

I thought it was 127.00.0.1, but I don’t know if that’s right or not.

Thanks

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**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2000, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-address-to-point-to-my-computer/23097/2 "2000-06-21T15:46:48Z")

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Your own IP address may be anything it was assigned to.

For Windows 95/98 go to a command prompt and type WINIPCFG. For Windows NT type IPCONFIG. You’ll see your IP address listed.

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**Author:** ![ookpik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c68b51/32.png) [@ookpik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ookpik)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2000, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-address-to-point-to-my-computer/23097/3 "2000-06-21T15:49:29Z")

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Stevie, You are correct. 127.0.0.1 is in fact reserved as localhost. It’s used primarly for testing.

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2000, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-address-to-point-to-my-computer/23097/4 "2000-06-21T18:44:09Z")

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You can edit the HOSTS file in the WINDOWS directory. IE will go there first to find IPs. So I have some lines like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost  
127.0.0.1 [image.eimg.com](http://image.eimg.com)  
127.0.0.1 [leader.linkexchange.com](http://leader.linkexchange.com)  
127.0.0.1 [ads.msn.com](http://ads.msn.com)  
127.0.0.1 [ad.preferences.com](http://ad.preferences.com)

That means ads from those sites will not be displayed as they are searched in my own machine and not found.

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**Author:** ![sewalk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@sewalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sewalk)\
**Post date:** [June 21, 2000, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ip-address-to-point-to-my-computer/23097/5 "2000-06-21T19:06:17Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*\*  
> You can edit the HOSTS file in the WINDOWS directory. IE will go there first to find IPs. So I have some lines like this:  
> \*\*

I hate to pick nits, but just to clarify, _TCP/IP_, i.e. winsock in the case of Windows, uses the HOSTS file to resolve IP addresses from hostnames, so ANY TCP/IP application will therefore use it (Just in case one was wanting to install and test an FTP server program, for instance). If you want to use name resolution for NetBIOS (Windows Networking) applications, the LMHOSTS file will take care of that. Don’t forget to remove the “.txt” extension from these files if you use Notepad to edit them.