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note this is NOT related to Apache and I'm not looking for Apache-centered answers.

I am using the Hugo static site generator to create sites and trying to test on a MacBook running Sierra.

I am able to start the server with

hugo server -Dw

And the server starts on localhost:1313, however when I try to access that URL I get a 404. 127.0.0.1:1313 works, but then all of the links fail as they try to resolve back to localhost.

I was able to access by enabling a domain name on my router (foo.home) and then I can open the main page with localhost.foo.home:1313, but all of the Hugo links still try to use localhost:1313.

So, two questions:

  1. Can I change the behavior of Hugo to use 127.0.0.1? I tried changing the baseURL in config.toml to localhost, 127.0.0.1 and the foo.home domains, but that didn't seem to do anything.
  2. Or, can I change the /etc/hosts file to resolve localhost?

Right now /etc/hosts has four entries - I am wondering if I can add another entry for 127.0.0.1 localhost but there's a warning about not making changes as it will break configuration of the loopback interface.

127.0.0.1       localhostw
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost 
fe80::1%lo0     localhost
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    localhost is just the hostname of the IP 127.0.0.1; they are the same thing. The problem that I am seeing is your first link in your etc/hosts file - you have a trailing w. It should be localhost
    – Allan
    Commented Aug 27, 2017 at 21:00
  • Thanks - I thought that was added by macos for some reason and that's why there's the note to not change it. Should I try renaming from localhostw to localhost? I just don't want to blow up my boot process.
    – lonstar
    Commented Aug 27, 2017 at 21:42
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    Go ahead and change it. It can't blow up your system, it can only give you the wrong address for another host.
    – Allan
    Commented Aug 27, 2017 at 22:01
  • That did it. Thanks for your help.Hopefully this will help someone else who has the same issue. If you post "check your /etc/hosts file and make sure 127.0.0.1 localhost is present" as an answer, I'll accept it.
    – lonstar
    Commented Aug 27, 2017 at 22:05
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    @lonstar It looks to me like there's still a problem. "localhost" resolves to both the local IP version 4 address (127.0.0.1) and the local IP version 6 addresses (::1 and fe80::1%lo0). Even with the typo ("localhostw"), the IPv6 addresses should still work. Unless, that is, hugo is for some reason failing to listen for IPv6 connections; if this is the case, you can still have trouble connecting via localhost. Try netstat -an | grep '[.]80 ' and see if it lists listeners on the IPv6 addresses as well as IPv4.
    – Gordon Davisson
    Commented Aug 27, 2017 at 22:36

1 Answer 1

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The key to this error was the following:

127.0.0.1:1313 works, but then all of the links fail as they try to resolve back to localhost.

That gave the hint - accessing via IP works but not via hostname. Thankfully, the /etc/hosts file was also included for examination. In it we see the following line (1st line):

127.0.0.1       localhostw

The trailing "w" at the end of the hostname localhost will cause the error. In effect, localhost wasn't defined, but localhostw was.

Removing the "w" will solve the issue.

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