Install Loopback Adapter Logon to Windows Server 2012 as a local administrator. Right-click the far bottom left of the Taskbar, over the Start charm when it appears. In the Device Manager window, right-click the server name and select Add legacy hardware from. Click Next on the welcome.
How To Setup A Loopback Adapter On Windows 7 1. Click the Start Menu Orb. In the search box Type hdwwiz and then Click the hdwwize.exe program link. Microsoft Loopback Adapter is a dummy network card, no hardware is involved. It is used as a testing tool for a virtual network environment where network access is not available. Also, you must use the Loopback adapter if there are conflicts with a network adapter or with a network adapter driver. I doubt very much that the Microsoft Loopback Adapter is what you need. As @Jaap suggests, try installing npcap. Also, you can read more about loopback capturing on the Wireshark Loopback capture setup wiki page.
Active1 year, 8 months ago
Just as the question says, what is the Microsoft Loopback Adapter, and as a bonus, what scenerios as a developer would it be useful? I've noticed it's been required when installing a couple of applications to my machine, but aside from guessing, I've never have had a sturdy understanding of it's functionality.
I've read a couple of articles online, but nothing really made me 'get it'. While I don't need a hugely complex answer, a little explaination would be very useful. Read serial data.
Thanks!George
George JohnstonGeorge Johnston24.6k2525 gold badges110110 silver badges167167 bronze badges
4 Answers
Well, the best answer I can give you is a few links.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoopbackThe key sentence here is
'Any traffic that a computer program sends to the loopback interface is immediately received on the same interface.'
http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/software/erx/erx50x/swconfig-system-basics/html/system-mgmt15.htmlThis may be a little more obscure if you don't know networking well.
Ant toolbar for windows 10. Basically, it's a fake network interface, useful for tests and stability. In practice, most likely something you'll never have to worry about (or you'd already know about it!)
TrevokeTrevoke
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When sending messages to 127.0.0.1 (or the localhost) the internal network driver typically handles this by shortcutting a few steps.
If you have a networksniffer/protocol analyzer like wireshark, it can not see these shortcutted packets.
By using a loopback adapter, the messages get send much further through the stack, enabling programs like wireshark to capture the packets (and enabling you to analyze the packets)
ToadToad10.6k1111 gold badges6868 silver badges122122 bronze badges
Here's an explanation that might be a bit easier to understand - one I'm working on at the moment.
We (a Bank) are pretty damn secure, as you would expect. One of our third party vendors requires the POS java app that we have to use connect to a 172.x.x.x address. Well, that's not routable.
So we have loopback adapters, one for each of their 172.x.x.x addresses, with the address we will allow as the IP. We then use the 'netsh' command to redirect traffic..
So any traffic that access, for example, 172.1.1.1 will get intercepted by Loopback Adapter #1 and redirected to 10.2.2.2. The pain is having one adapter per address.
Hope that makes it a little clearer.
Jon BiddellJon Biddell
Some software requires some network functionality, even if the machine in question doesn't have network functionality. The loopback is a dummy network driver, which can have real network protocols bound to it. This allows the software to install properly, even though there isn't a real network card installed in the machine.
Aaron MAdd Microsoft Loopback Adapter Windows Server 2012
Aaron M1,86311 gold badge1919 silver badges3737 bronze badges