In computer networking, a link-local address is a network address that is valid only for communications on a local link, i.e., within a subnetwork that a host is connected to. Link-local addresses are typically assigned automatically through a process known as link-local address autoconfiguration, also known as auto-IP, automatic private IP addressing, and stateless address autoconfiguration. While most link-local addresses are unicast, this is not necessarily the case; e.g., IPv6 addresses beginning with ff02:, and IPv4 addresses beginning with 224.0.0. are multicast addresses that are link-local.