My PC has a 169.254.x.x address — what is it telling me?
A workstation can't reach anything and ipconfig shows 169.254.203.7. Where did that address come from? Nobody configured it.
1 Answer
That's APIPA (link-local, 169.254.0.0/16), and it's a diagnosis in disguise: the host asked DHCP for an address and nobody answered, so it self-assigned one just to have something. Translation: the problem is between the host and the DHCP server. Work the chain: is the port up and in the right VLAN? Is the DHCP server alive with a non-exhausted pool? And the classic — is the client on a different subnet than the server with no ip helper-address on the gateway? DHCP DISCOVER is a broadcast; routers don't forward broadcasts, so without a helper/relay the request dies at the gateway. APIPA hosts can technically talk to each other on the same segment, but with no gateway they reach nothing beyond it.