Fedora "Netstat -rn" reports an extra entry "169.254.0.0 ...."

[Mike Hogsett]

> >  I got an additional entry when I run “netstat –rn” on my fedora host, 
> > an “169.254.0.0 
” entry appears without being invited. I know that 
> > 169.254.0.0/16 is a private address block for some kind of special 
> > purposes, and it appears in “ifup” script, But my question is: what does 
> > this entry mean?  And How to get rid of it if it does nothing except 
> > bring security holes? Since it is routable now through my hosts’ exneral 
> > interface, ridicules..
> 
> It means you have an additional network card, without an active 
> connection. The card tries to retrieve an IP address from a DHCP server 
> which is supposedly not present. Then this address will be assigned to it.

I don't think that is the case.  In my situation the machine has a single
network card, eth0, with static addressing, yet there is indeed the route
to 169.254/16 out eth0.  This is what the OP was questioning.

 - Mike


eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:B0:D0:7B:8F:AD  
          inet addr:10.107.2.57  Bcast:10.107.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:8818054 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:10028512 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:929495147 (886.4 Mb)  TX bytes:103464711 (98.6 Mb)
          Interrupt:16 Base address:0xdc80 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:2433195 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2433195 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:390314885 (372.2 Mb)  TX bytes:390314885 (372.2 Mb)



Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
10.107.2.0      0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 eth0
169.254.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U         0 0          0 eth0   <--- why?
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U         0 0          0 lo
0.0.0.0         10.107.2.1      0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 eth0


 cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 
# 3Com Corporation|3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado]
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=none
BROADCAST=10.107.2.255
HWADDR=00:B0:D0:7B:8F:AD
IPADDR=10.107.2.57
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=10.107.2.0
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=no
GATEWAY=10.107.2.1