what is ip address is 0.0.0.0?

I work as an Technical Help desk agent and while Troubleshooting cases reg the connectivity of DSL people say they get the ip address 0.0.0.0 and so is the Subnetmask and Default gateway.Would that mean that the OS is looking at the dial adapter instead of the N/W adapter or the NIC is not functioning properly. would release and renew ip address work?
Some say ping 127.0.0.1 says nothing abt NIC. is it true?
does uninstall and reinstall TCP/IP work?

if you're seeing an ip of 0.0.0.0 in a winblows box, it means you didnt give it an IP...


If you use DHCP the release / renew should give you an IP.. if it doesnt then after a while windows will give it an autoconfiguration IP.. such as 169.x.x.x

like ragamuffin said, usually means nothing or everything.

when reported by IPCONFIG or IFCONFIG means no address assigned to interface

when used in proxy apps such as a spam proxy on your localhost, usually refers to binding to or listening on all local address/interfaces

To my knowledge 127.0.0.1 is the loop back address.. it tests your nic and tcp/ip stack..

I might be wrong about the stack part...

To my knowledge 127.0.0.1 is the loop back address.. it tests your nic and tcp/ip stack..

I might be wrong about the stack part...

That is exactly correct. It's an internal address so if that test fails it's more than likely going to be a problem with TCP/IP

In my experience, the 0.0.0.0 address can mean that the DHCP server is failing or even hasn't been started (XP). Could also have been set statically, otherwise it usually turns into the 169 as stated above.

It also depends on what operating system you are using.. if you are using windows and that is what IP address you are receiving, its definetly a tcp/ip problem that probably could be fixed by reinstalling it under properties on the network connection. I say this because if TCP/IP is properly configured under windows, and you have a ethernet card, it will automatically assign you a private IP address. Regardless if you have DCHP running through you're ISP or private network.