A feature of the TCP/IP protocol that assigns a class B IP address from 169.254.0.0 to 169.254.255.255 to a machine when a DHCP server is either permanently or temporarily unavailable. Designed for small non-routable networks, if a DHCP server becomes available later, the autoconfiguration address is replaced with one from the DHCP server. This function in Windows is called "Automatic Private IP Addressing" (see
APIPA). See
DHCP and
private IP address.