ok here goes

I installed RedHat 9 on my system, and for the most part things are good. My hardware is recognized and all that stuff. (Well, not my Radeon 9600 Pro, but I don't need linux for intense graphics, I've got WinXP for that)

The trouble started when I typed "localhost" (with the http junk in front) into the mozilla browser. This is the error I received: "The conection was refused when attmpting to contact localhost"

I also tried just typing in "127.0.0.1", same error. (with the http junk in front)

I received a similar error from Konqueror:

"An error occured while loading localhost:

Could not connect to host localhost"

I did install Apache 1.3.x and the install went fine, and I was able to start that server without a single problem. What am I missing?

This is bothersome because my soul purpose for installing RedHat on my machine was to get better aquainted with Linux based web servers. Hmmm, if I can't even access "localhost" on my own machine...

I have searched around for an answer to this problem on the web and a lot of people seem to be having the same problem, but there aren't a lot of answers out there...

I am so new to linux it's not funny, but I learn fast, so if anyone has any ideas, I would really appreciate it.

if apache is working thats cool. next you'll need bind working if your to use a name like localhost.

but typing the IP should have worked....

i think you need to amend the httpd.conf file to specify what IP apache will listen on. did you do that?

Here is what I did, you'll laugh, really.

I ERASED the hard drive and reinstalled redhat 9 from scratch.
After reinstalling, I started up the apache server, all was good in the land of localhost.

Yes, I know that it was the least productive solution, but I just haven't gotten over the Linux learning curve enough to know what to have done about it.

Thank you for the reply though!!

For future refference and anyone else who may read this. Check that your loopback "lo" device is active:
ifconfig lo

and that you have a loopback "127.0.0.0" route:
route -n

It could also be a firewall problem. Make sure port 80 isn't blocked:
iptables -nL