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This might be somewhat of a silly question but, does connecting to the localhost or 127.0.0.1 actually initiate the network connection to the router and then comes back as a received signal or does it bypass the network altogether and just achieves the same effect by mimicking a network in software?

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…does connecting to the localhost or 127.0.0.1 actually initiate the network connection to the router and then comes back as a received signal or does it bypass the network altogether and just achieves the same effect by mimicking a network in software?

When you connect to localhost/127.0.0.1 that is strictly a local connection on your local machine managed by the local OS. It never connects to an external router or device to achieve connectivity.

But when you say “…mimicking a network in software…” that is not exactly right. A system does not “mimick” a network when using localhost/127.0.0.1; networking functionality that would exist outside your OS system exists naturally as a part of the core OS on your system when using localhost/127.0.0.1.

The whole reason that localhost/127.0.0.1 is considered a loopback connection is exactly that: A strictly local connection that feeds on itself but ultimately uses the same exact protocol and network structures a supposed “real” network does. A loopback connection is designed for testing and debugging—and sometimes local application needs—so it never “mimics” anything; it is what it is which is a network connection.

And for what it's worth, some software such as Firefox have deliberately used “acts as a server” processes that connect to an application created server reachable on localhost/127.0.0.1 as part of it’s normal operations. And many RESTful API-based pieces of server software make use of local loopback to have a front-end layer of their core code talk back to a locally-based RESTful API for core operations.

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It bounces back to your machine, does not reach the external router, in other words, it does half of the journey in the OSI layer and returns.

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