Hacker News Reader

Comment by helloguillecl | Hacker News Reader

This does not work if you want to use a hostname other than "localhost" (for running VirtualHost) pointing to your local machine.

View on HN

Open a world of fun by running your local services like proxies on 127.1.2.3, 127.2.3.4, etc with the matching hostnames in /etc/hosts

You have 127.255.255.255 to play with!

You mean 127/8

There's nothing wrong with the previously used notation.

127/8 may only be understandable to those who already know that the whole 127.255.255.255 range is reserved for localhost use.

Sometimes being understandable is more important than using the most precise and shortest notation.

127.255.255.255 is a broadcast address in the /8. It doesn't describe the amount of bits in the network. You need a netmask or CIDR notation for that. For IPv6 you need CIDR, so I suggest to learn that.

CIDR is understandable for people who know basic networking. If someone doesn't understand what 127/8 means (which is totally OK if someone doesn't) I'd argue they shouldn't learn about the topic we discuss (valid HTTPS certs for localhost); they should learn something as basic as CIDR first. CIDR isn't difficult to understand. Basics first. You can't learn to speak English if you don't know how to open and close your mouth...

Yes, there is. Either you mention an IP address with a netmask such as 127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 or you use CIDR. Mentioning a broadcast address to describe an address space is wrong because it doesn't describe how many bits (netmask and CIDR do that for IPv4).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com