What is the advantage or disadvantage of using INADDR_ANY instead of the IP address of the computer running on the server?
The format of TCP/IP, structure sockaddr_in defines uses to show an address. Structure have field for an IP address and for a protocol port number. Even though a server can choose to fill in the IP address while specifying an IP address, doing that causes problems while a host is multihomed since it implies the server only accepts requests that sent to one exact address. To permit a server to operate on a multi-homed host, the socket API contains a special symbolic constant, INADDR_ANY which allows a server to use an exact port at any of the computer's IP address.