[Etoys] Re: Local host address

[Ian Piumarta]

On Oct 18, 2006, at 5:06 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

> ... answers 127.0.0.1 on the A-test board.
>
> can we make this answer the address of the default interface?

You mean the address of the default gateway?  While in some  
situations it might be the same as the local host address, on the  
vast majority of machines in the world it's the address of a remote  
machine.

> The one marked default (dest addr = 0.0.0.0) in the routing table?

That isn't even a valid host address; it's the address of an entire  
network (or the least restrictive wildcard address, depending what  
you're using it for).

FWIW, having the primary IP address set to 0.0.0.0 is usually  
symptomatic of your interface having received no configuration  
information from DHCP or BOOTP.  In normal operation when connected  
to a network you should never see a physical interface configured  
with this address.

If you are convinced you need to send stuff to 0.0.0.0 then you might  
consider implementing 'defaultNetworkAddress' next to  
localHostAddress in the image (return #[0 0 0 0]) and replace sends  
of the latter with sends of the former.  Breaking the  
localHostAddress primitive for everyone who wants to restrict  
incoming connections to those originating on the primary interface of  
the local physical host seems completely the wrong thing to do.

Cheers,
Ian