Zero Conf is a protocol, mostly used by Microsoft Windows and Apple's MacOS, that helps with configuring the network settings for a client automatically. The two most frequently used alternatives for IP configuration are DHCP and manual configuration.
Zero Conf runs without a dedicated service for the job (like DHCP would). Usually it is the last means an unconfigured client uses, after not having a manual IP configuration set and no DHCP replying to IP assignment requests. In such a case, the client will simply assign itself an IP address taken randomly from the range 169.254.0.0 to 169.254.255.255. If this address is already occupied by another host, the computer tries another one. This way, at least every computer will have a means of communicating with other hosts on the network.
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