mysterious network connection

T

trevornathan

Registered
I've just noticed that occasionally when I click on the Network icon in Finder that I seem to be connected to a nfs server.

I have no idea how this connection came to be (I do not run any networks) and to be honest wouldn't have a clue how to run one if I tried. The ownership is "read only" so I can't delete it

The network server has a name that is similar to that of my ISP (maxonlie in singapore). This server seems to be an alias to my entire hard drive

Should I be concerned ?
 
That sounds like just your local connection to yourself. It's been in the network browser for every version of OS X that I can remember. The name you see there, the alias for your machine, is probably the hostname given by your ISP when you connected to the network.

I believe the alias name should be the same as the "hostname" in Unix (i.e., open a Terminal, type 'hostname' and return, and see the result), but I could be wrong.
 
I tried the Unix idea and you are correct, it is the same name

But, why does it sometimes appear and sometimes not ?

And (pardon my ignorance) what exactly is a "local connection to myself"
 
An important concept in Unix-style networking is "localhost", which is a "loopback" connection to the machine. "localhost" is equivalent to the loopback IP 127.0.0.1, which also always points you to your own machine.

To see an example of this, open a browser and type http://localhost/, then http://127.0.0.1/. If your web server is running, you should see the same page for each of these links.

These loopback addresses are important for setting up various servers and network services on a typical Unix machine. A loopback is a way for a server to point to itself using a formal network address.

So Apple seems to provide a similar loopback service in their network browser, I imagine for a sense of completeness as much as anything else.

Why does it appear sometimes? I don't know the answer to that. It might only appear when your machine has an active internet connection.
 
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