System admins new that language based system was needed to refer to network devices.
The original way that numbered network addresses were correlated with words was through hosts files.
A flat file that contains, on each line, a network address followed by the host name it can be referred to as.
Ex. 1.2.3.4 example.com → user can refer to 1.2.3.4 as example.com. Can either ping or enter it to the URL in the web browser to refer to 1.2.3.4.
OS would read from host file to check if there’s a domain that user is trying to access.
Host file is an ancient technology but all modern operating system, including those that power our phones and tablets, still have hosts files. One reason is the loop back address.
A way of sending network traffic to yourself (127.0.0.1 or 127.0.1.1 in linux)
In fact, 127/8 address space is all bounded to loopback address.
Using loopback address. bypasses all network infrastructure itself and traffic like that never leaves the node.
Almost every hosts file in existence will, in the very least contain a line that reads 127.0.0.1 localhost. most likely followed by ::1 localhost, where ::1 is the loopback address for IPv6
Hosts files are a popular way for computer viruses to disrupt and redirect users’ traffic
Why does my hostname appear with the address 127.0.1.1 rather than 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts?