Background: The setup that I and my clients have consists of RTMC Pro running on a local PC and LoggerNet and CSI Web Server running on a remote Windows server. We develop the dashboards on the local PC and then use Web Publisher to publish the dashboards to the remote CSI Web Server.
We like to connect to the remote server from RTMC Pro so that we can view the live data while we are working.
My question: Do you recommend that we change the host name to "localhost" just before we publish to CSI Web Server?
Although leaving the remote server host name in place works, I'm curious if the server is wasting resources by making a call to itself via a remote hostname instead of "localhost". Or perhaps the server is smart enough to recognize a call to itself via its host name, such that it skips the round trip to the internet and back as if localhost was entered?
The biggest advantage of not changing the host name to "localhost" is that the workflow is much simpler, i.e., set the hostname to the remote server and leave it. When I have tried to explain this remote hostname vs localhost issue to my clients, they understandably get very confused.
The Windows 'hosts' file would perform local redirection if it includes the host name definition. By default it usually includes a loopback definition, but you can add whatever definitions you want.
127.0.0.1 localhost
The software engineer says we are just opening a TCP/IP socket either way, so it is not wasting resources.
@crs - Great suggestion. I just tried it and it seems to be working.
@Terri - Isn't it a waste to make extra call out DNS to resolve the host name?
Name resolution only comes into the picture when the TCP connection is first made. The time required to resolve the address should be amortised into the life of the connection. Since RTMC and CSIWEBS both maintain connections to LgrNet sources as long as the source remains, the time to first resolve the address will be inconsequential. This is further facilitated by the fact that the name resolver in the OS will cache name records with appropriate time to live.
I wouldn't mess too much with the windows hosts file because it represents a sure fire method of shooting yourself in the foot when host addresses change and you have forgotten having edited the file in the first place. If I remember correctly, names in this file will always take precedence over the network name servers.
One of our IT experts says the memory and traffic for this is very minimal. The DNS info will be cached and when it is looked up again, the traffic is minimal compared to everything else RTMC has taking place. Doing things the way you have been is not a problem.