I'm building a network of fairly stupid devices. Most if not all communication with them will be via MAC-addressable frames. They aren't big or smart enough to have an IP stack, complex, heavy-weight discovery protocols, etc. BUT, I also need 'Windows-based tools to be able to reach these devices and _that_ is facilitated by writing to a multicast _IP_ address and letting the stack just do the normal thing of mapping that IP into a multicast MAC address.
The problem I have is picking the multicast IP address. I know some are reseerved (all hosts, all routers, etc.) and I know there are protocols for having one assigned dynamically on a network at run time. But, as I said, these devices are too stupid to negotiate for that assignment. Is there one or more multicast IP addresses that are intended to be used like network 10 (10.192.x.x, 10.168.x.x, etc.) for local, private communication?
Thanks for any pointers.
Chris