An IP address in the range from 169.254.1.0 to 169.254.254.255. It is used to automatically assign an IP address to a device in an IP network when there is no other assignment method available, such as a DHCP server. After an address is chosen, the link-local process sends an ARP query with that IP onto the network to see if it exists. If there is no response, the IP is assigned to the device, otherwise another IP is selected, and the ARP is repeated. See ARP, DHCP, Zeroconf and UPnP.