Linux Networking — What is IP Address 169.254.169.254?
<p>The IP address <code>169.254.169.254</code> is a link-local address used by cloud environments, including Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and others. This IP address is used to provide metadata to instances running in the cloud environment.</p>
<p>If you run the <code>ip route</code> command, you will see the following:</p>
<pre>
$ ip route show | grep 169.254.169.254
169.254.169.254 dev eth0</pre>
<p>In different cloud platforms, you will see different output.</p>
<h2>GCP Context</h2>
<p>In the context of GCP (Google Cloud Platform), instances can query <code>169.254.169.254</code> to access instance metadata, project metadata, and other information about the instance or running processes. The metadata server is a read-only server that provides instance-specific data.</p>
<p><a href="https://tonylixu.medium.com/linux-networking-what-is-ip-address-169-254-169-254-f9e23b7332fe"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>