Linux route

The route command displays and manipulate IP routing table for your system.

A router is a device which is basically used to determine the best way to route packets to a destination.

Syntax:

Look at the above snapshot, it displays all existing routing table entries on our system.

It shows that if the destination is within the network range of 10.0.0.0 to 10.0.0.255, then the gateway is *, which is 0.0.0.0. This is a special address which represents an invalid or non-existent destination.

Packets which are not within this IP range, will be forwarded to default gateway, which further routes the packet.

Displaying numerical IP address

This command displays output in full numerical form.

Syntax:

Look at the above snapshot, the numerical IP address is displayed.

Adding a default gateway

Packets that are not within the network range are forwarded to the gateway. We can specify this gateway with the following command,

Syntax:

Routing cache information

Kernel maintains a routing cache table to route the packets faster. To list this information, use following command,

Syntax: