| If you bind the apache web server to the local interface, so that it isn't accessible to other machines, it can still serve up pages to browsers/web clients on this machine. This is ideal for many web developers, who don't need a worldwide accessible web server, but would like to edit a web site locally before uploading to another server. To access the server, you would simply use, as a URL in your browser:
http://localhost/ and http://localhost/some_page.html
Even if you fully deactivated the web server in the previous step, this option still makes sense: if you or someone else turns the server back on, it doesn't represent as great a risk if it isn't set to allow connections from the entire internet. |