A system for resolving address conflicts in a network. In an illustrative
embodiment, the system includes an address-configuration module that is
adapted to assign addresses to one or more devices. The one or more
devices are connected to the network via device interfaces. An
interface-monitoring module communicates with the address-configuration
module. The interface-monitoring module is adapted to determine when an
address conflict involving plural addresses occurs and to provide a
signal in response thereto. A conflict-resolution module is adapted to
selectively terminate one or more device interfaces associated with the
plural addresses in response to the signal and based on the addresses and
one or more predetermined precedence rules. In a more specific
embodiment, the system further employs a user interface for facilitating
selectively adjusting the precedence rules. The conflict-resolution
module runs one or more routines adapted to implement a static
conflict-resolution policy, a longest-prefix policy, a highest-address
policy, and/or an interface-identifier policy for Internet Protocol (IP)
addresses.