port explorer 0.0.0.0 and *.*.*.* ?

Port Explorer screens for local and/or remote host addresses sometimes show 0.0.0.0 or *.*.*.*.

I believe 0.0.0.0 means 'listening' on all interfaces. But what does *.*.*.* indicate? and please correct me if I'm wrong on the 0.0.0.0.

Thanks!

 

Hello Root09,
in the status you will most probably see LISTENING
Think it's related to UDP ports.

In my HOSTS file i gave some nice names to my computer and the localhost
so you might like to add for instance
127.0.0.1 www.myowndomain.com
0.0.0.0 mycomputer

Do make sure first that domainname does not exist in reality!! as i think it does, so choose something absolutely unique, thus preventing problems when surfing around.
With that, you can see interesting your modem, computer, local host, other localhost address and whatever you add there from 127.0.0.1 till 127.0.0.99 if you like (one is really sufficient, but you might like to put some extra creativity ) and how they connect or what exactly is connected to internet. I find it really interesting to see all different instead of just localhost connecting to localhost and so i'm at least really sure it is my own system and not a remote localhost elsewhere!

 

so are you saying that 0.0.0.0 and *.*.*.* both represent localhost(127.0.0.1)? If so why two different ones?

I'm familiar with localhost and hosts file etc... I'm just not sure exactly what the 0.0.0.0 and *.*.*.* represent?

 

We've posted about it before; unfortunately the search engine doesn't take those terms like "*.*.*.*" to find the postings back;
The best info this moment is in the Port Explorer help file for Main interface and Sockets status overview, very instructional read!
When UDP used you see often the *.*.*.* for remote and remoteport * as a listening status, either connected to your localhost 127.0.0.1 or 0.0.0.0 , localport local might be for instance 137 138.
Mind the difference between TCP and UDP :
TCP will always show up as localhost, 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1
and UDP as localhost, 0.0.0.0 (local) or *.*.*.* (remote)
You'll see the same if you do in TDS or anywhere a netstat -an

 

ok. Thanks

I'll check out that section of the help file as well.

 

Very educative and interesting read! Gave me more info then the links it's referring to

 

UDP sockets often show the remote as *.*.*.* simply because UDP sockets cannot be "connected" to a remote IP address, rather they just send packets to a remote IP address.

Port Explorer shows the LAST IP address data was sent to on a UDP socket for some of the sockets it can display it for, but it cannot display this information for the netstat based sockets which is why you see *.*.*.* .

0.0.0.0 remote IP address does mean as you specified, accepting connections on all interfaces.

-Jason-

 

This thread should be a sticky.

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