169.xxx.xxx.xxx addresses

[Craig Haycock]

Hello, I understand that a host that has a 169 address hasn't recieved a valid ip and that it has automatically been given it. I have a standalone network thats purely for a cctv system (ip cameras, server and workstation pc). The engineer who first set it up didn't assign any ips to the camera and just let them all get 169 addresses which the server then found automatically and the pictures are now all on the server and workstation. Then motion of picture views have a lag on them. Would the fact that they have 169 addresses affect the network speed in any way? The server and workstation both have 192.168.1.xxx addresses

[James Leinweber · Accepted solution]

There shouldn't be much if any lag introduced by having 169.254.0.0/16 "zeroconf" automatically configured addresses and 192.168.1.0/24 private addresses sharing a vlan.   You might be seeing an increase in ICMP redirects coming off your gateway router for these.   The bigger issue is that the zeroconf addresses aren't stable, so every time a camera is power cycled it will probably change its address.  If *that* is undesirable, then you want to switch to static addresses or DHCP reservations or something.

-- Jim Leinweber, WI State Lab of Hygiene