Stateless address autoconfiguration in the context of Internet Protocol version 4

A network host is a computer or other device connected to a computer network. A host may work as a server offering information resources, services, and applications to users or other hosts on the network. Hosts are assigned at least one network address.

A computer participating in networks that use the Internet protocol suite may also be called an IP host. Specifically, computers participating in the Internet are called Internet hosts. Internet hosts and other IP hosts have one or more IP addresses assigned to their network interfaces. The addresses are configured either manually by an administrator, automatically at startup by means of the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), or by stateless address autoconfiguration methods.

In computer networking, a link-local address is a network address that is valid only for communications on a local link, i.e. within a subnetwork that a host is connected to. Link-local addresses are typically assigned automatically through a process known as link-local address autoconfiguration, also known as auto-IP, automatic private IP addressing (APIPA, specific to IPv4), and stateless address autoconfiguration (SLAAC, specific to IPv6). While most link-local addresses are unicast, this is not necessarily the case; e.g. IPv6 addresses beginning with ff02: (ff02::/16), and IPv4 addresses beginning with 224.0.0. (224.0.0.0/24) are multicast addresses that are link-local.

Link-local addresses are not guaranteed to be unique beyond their network segment. Therefore, routers do not forward packets with link-local source or destination addresses.