Apple

On Apr 30, 2009, at 7:38 AM, Ian Mark Salvame wrote:

>>> First post here - be gentle.

>>> A 169.254.xxx.xxx address results when an interface asks for a DHCP assignment but does not receive one. There is an RFC for this but >>> I can't think of the number.

>>> Although you can in some instances ping and use the address on such a configured interface, other routers and switches may not route >>> that subnet at all. So why not just manually configure the interfaces to a regular private subnet (192.168... 10... 172...) until you can >>> rule out other problems?

Actually, en1 interface connects directly to Host2 (Adhoc connection) with self-assigned IP address(169.254.xxx.xxx), there's no router connection for en1. So I guess pinging the subnet broadcast for en1(169.254.255.255) will not be successfull and will return "host is down" error.

Apologies - forgot this on the previous post - but can the host ping itself? That is if Host1 has IP 169.254.111.222 can you ping that address on that host? And have you done a 'netstat -r' on each machine? I think someone else already mentioned the service order if you have multiple interfaces on the same machine. You might double-check that as it affects the default route. Also double-check the firewall preference panel for stealth mode (under the 'advanced' button on 10.5.x; on 10.4 I think it's in the network settings or sharing preference panel). Most of the time these things are something simple. I once spent half a day troubleshooting a problem that turned out to be a bad cable. Fool me once . . .