Internet, Networking, & Security > Home Networking 195 195 people found this article helpful What It Means When You See the 0.0.0.0 IP Address It's probably not good, so here's some tips By Bradley Mitchell Bradley Mitchell Writer Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of Illinois An MIT graduate who brings years of technical experience to articles on SEO, computers, and wireless networking. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on November 7, 2020 Reviewed by Chris Selph Reviewed by Chris Selph Chris Selph is a CompTIA-certified technology and vocational IT teacher. He also serves as network & server administrator and performs computer maintenance and repair for numerous clients. lifewire's editorial guidelines Home Networking ISP The Wireless Connection Routers & Firewalls Network Hubs Broadband Ethernet Installing & Upgrading Wi-Fi & Wireless Trending Videos Close this video player IP addresses in Internet Protocol (IP) version 4 (IPv4) range from 0.0.0.0 up to 255.255.255.255. The IP address 0.0.0.0 has several special meanings on computer networks. However, it can not be used as a general-purpose device address. Pixabay This IP address is structured like a regular one (it has four places for numbers). However, it's a placeholder address or one that's used to describe that there isn't a normal address assigned—neither public nor private. For example, instead of putting no IP address into the network area of a program, 0.0.0.0 can be used to mean anything from accept all IP addresses or block all IP addresses to the default route. It's easy to confuse 0.0.0.0 and 127.0.0.1. An address with four zeros has several defined uses (as described below), while 127.0.0.1 has one specific purpose of allowing a device to send messages to itself. The 0.0.0.0 IP address is sometimes called a wildcard address, unspecified address, or INADDR_ANY. What 0.0.0.0 Means In short, 0.0.0.0 is a non-routable address that describes an invalid or unknown target. However, it means something different depending on whether it's seen on a client device like a computer or on a server machine. Pixabay On Client Computers PCs and other client devices normally show an address of 0.0.0.0 when not connected to a TCP/IP network. A device might give itself this address by default whenever it is offline. It might also be automatically assigned by DHCP in the case of address assignment failures. When set with this address, a device cannot communicate with any other devices on that network. 0.0.0.0 can also theoretically be set as a device's subnet mask rather than its IP address. However, a subnet mask with this value has no practical purpose. Both the IP address and network mask are typically assigned 0.0.0.0 on a client. Depending on the way it's used, firewall or router software might use 0.0.0.0 to indicate that every IP address should be blocked (or allowed). On Software Applications and Servers Some devices, particularly network servers, possess more than one network interface. TCP/IP software applications use 0.0.0.0 as a programming technique to monitor network traffic across all the IP addresses currently assigned to the interfaces on that multi-homed device. Pixabay While connected computers do not use this address, messages carried over IP sometimes include 0.0.0.0 inside the protocol header when the source of the message is unknown. What to Do When You See the 0.0.0.0 IP Address If a computer is properly configured for TCP/IP networking but shows 0.0.0.0 for an address, try the following to troubleshoot this problem and obtain a valid address: On networks with dynamic address assignment support, release and renew the computer's IP address. Failures with DHCP assignment can be intermittent or persistent. If the failures persist, troubleshoot the DHCP server configuration. Common causes of failure include having no available addresses in the DHCP pool. For networks that require static IP addressing, configure a valid IP address on the computer. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit