Binding to just one network adaptor / ip address?

[alanmiddleton74]

Hi all,

I'm new to the whole xap thing and not 100% sure that I 'get it', but
interested in getting involved based on what I saw at ukha2004 - the
desktop application looked very cool!

It looks worthwhile installing xap just for the desktop features so
pending it's release I've installed the xap hub and some of the
plugins that look interesting for the desktop (weather etc) just to
get my head around things. Intention is to use this to pull useful
information into my workstation and build an understanding before
going further.

This is running on my laptop that has multiple network cards
installed - wifi and a wired interface one of which is being used for
my work lan. I've also installed the microsoft loopback adaptor.

I don't want to broadcast xap messages on the wifi or wired
interface, just to the loopback device so if I have new mail I'm not
going to send this out to the whole network, just to the restricted
loopback network, but I can't see any way of binding the hub /
clients to just one network device. The hubgui seems to only show
traffic on the loopback devices ip address, but I don't know why it
decided to do that or that I absolutely trust that's the only network
I'm sending xap traffic on.

Is it possible to bind to just one ip and I'm just missing it in some
configuration file? (like I said new to this)
If not, can I just block port 3640 and 1859 in my personal firewall
all ips apart from the loopback range? or are there additional steps
I should take to prevent someone 'eavesdropping' on my xap traffic ?

I know this sounds like a contradiction to the principals of xap but
if I'm at work I don't control who is else is on the same network as
me and don't want someone reading my mail or reporting my machine as
being possibly infected by a virus due to the strange traffic.

Longer term I'm assuming I could run this on a server at home in it's
own little network segment, and then vpn in remotely to pick up xap
messages for the desktop without this being an issue since I control
the local network, I'll take my chances on no unwanted guests being
on it.

Hope this makes sense....

Kind Regards

Alan.