# bind method

Future<HttpServer> bind (dynamic address, int port, { int backlog: 0, bool v6Only: false, bool shared: false })

Starts listening for HTTP requests on the specified `address` and `port`.

The `address` can either be a String or an InternetAddress. If `address` is a String, bind will perform a InternetAddress.lookup and use the first value in the list. To listen on the loopback adapter, which will allow only incoming connections from the local host, use the value InternetAddress.loopbackIPv4 or InternetAddress.loopbackIPv6. To allow for incoming connection from the network use either one of the values InternetAddress.anyIPv4 or InternetAddress.anyIPv6 to bind to all interfaces or the IP address of a specific interface.

If an IP version 6 (IPv6) address is used, both IP version 6 (IPv6) and version 4 (IPv4) connections will be accepted. To restrict this to version 6 (IPv6) only, use `v6Only` to set version 6 only. However, if the address is InternetAddress.loopbackIPv6, only IP version 6 (IPv6) connections will be accepted.

If `port` has the value `0` an ephemeral port will be chosen by the system. The actual port used can be retrieved using the `port` getter.

The optional argument `backlog` can be used to specify the listen backlog for the underlying OS listen setup. If `backlog` has the value of `0` (the default) a reasonable value will be chosen by the system.

The optional argument `shared` specifies whether additional HttpServer objects can bind to the same combination of `address`, `port` and `v6Only`. If `shared` is `true` and more `HttpServer`s from this isolate or other isolates are bound to the port, then the incoming connections will be distributed among all the bound `HttpServer`s. Connections can be distributed over multiple isolates this way.

## Implementation

    static Future<HttpServer> bind(address, int port,
            {int backlog: 0, bool v6Only: false, bool shared: false}) =>
        _HttpServer.bind(address, port, backlog, v6Only, shared);