I don’t know what got broken, or how did it get broken but IP connections on my interface which is using AUTO IP (169.254.0.0/16) stopped working all of a sudden.

$ nc  -nvvvv 169.254.2.206 23
(UNKNOWN) [169.254.2.206] 23 (?) : Network is unreachable
 sent 0, rcvd 0

When I explicitly bind to the correct interface it worked.

$ nc -s 169.254.46.68 -nvvvv 169.254.2.206 23
(UNKNOWN) [169.254.2.206] 23 (?) open
Welcome to ENDA Administration Terminal
Password:

The fact that the error is returned immediately and the content of the error points out that it is a routing problem. So I checked my routing table.

$ route -4 print
===========================================================================
Interface List
 37...00 1f 1f ea 7f 52 ......150Mbps Wireless 802.11b/g/n Nano USB Adapter
 28...00 ff 2d 67 65 d4 ......TAP-Win32 Adapter V9
 10...00 1d ba 68 a5 ac ......Intel(R) 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection
  1...........................Software Loopback Interface 1
 12...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
 39...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
 26...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #3
 38...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2
===========================================================================

IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination        Netmask          Gateway       Interface  Metric
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0      192.168.1.1    192.168.1.104     25
        127.0.0.0        255.0.0.0         On-link         127.0.0.1    306
        127.0.0.1  255.255.255.255         On-link         127.0.0.1    306
  127.255.255.255  255.255.255.255         On-link         127.0.0.1    306
    169.254.46.68  255.255.255.255         On-link     169.254.46.68    356
      192.168.1.0    255.255.255.0         On-link     192.168.1.104    281
    192.168.1.104  255.255.255.255         On-link     192.168.1.104    281
    192.168.1.255  255.255.255.255         On-link     192.168.1.104    281
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0         On-link         127.0.0.1    306
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0         On-link     169.254.46.68    356
        224.0.0.0        240.0.0.0         On-link     192.168.1.104    281
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255         On-link         127.0.0.1    306
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255         On-link     169.254.46.68    356
  255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255         On-link     192.168.1.104    281
===========================================================================
Persistent Routes:
  Network Address          Netmask  Gateway Address  Metric
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0      192.168.1.1  Default
          0.0.0.0          0.0.0.0      192.168.1.1  Default
===========================================================================

Looks like the problem is

169.254.46.68  255.255.255.255         On-link     169.254.46.68    356

Netmask should have been 255.255.0.0, so that any 169.254.C.D would be carried on with this routing record. So I deleted the faulty line 

route -4 delete 169.254.46.68

then issued 

route -4 add 169.254.0.0 mask 255.255.0.0 0.0.0.0 metric 3 if 10

10 being my Ethernet adapter as can be seen on the top “route -4 print”. Tricky part for me was to get the gateway was “On-link” in the routing table, after a couple of tries I figured using “0.0.0.0″ as the gateway just makes it “On-link”. After all, whole point of AUTO IP networks is that there’s no router present :)

Now, it works, but after reboots these could be screwed up all over again (despite the fact that route has -p parameter). We’ll see.