How do I interpret 'netstat -a' output

Question

Some things look strange to me:

• What is the distinction between 0.0.0.0, 127.0.0.1, and [::]?
• How should each part of the foreign address be read (part1:p

Answer 1

What is the distinction between 0.0.0.0, 127.0.0.1, and [::]?

• 0.0.0.0 indicates something that is listening on all interfaces on the machine.
• 127.0.0.1 indicates your own machine.
• [::] is the IPv6 version of 0.0.0.0
• My machine also shows *:\* for UDP which shows that UDP connections don't really have a foreign address - they receive packets from any where. That is the nature of UDP.