The Routing Table
A routing table is a data file in a RAM that is used to store route information about directly connected and remote networks. A routing table contain network or next hop information that tell a router that a particular router representing the ‘next-hop’ on the way to the final destination. A routing table is viewed as a table format that determined where the data packet to be directed in the network to reach the destination network.
A routing table contains the necessary information to forward the packet along the best path and each packet contains the information about its source and the destination. Routing table just like a database which keep the track of paths.
When router receives any packet, it examines the packet and matches it to the routing table to providing the best match for its destination. The table provides the instruction to the router for sending the packet to the next hop on its route across the network. A routing table contains different types of entries-Network route –it is a route to a specific network id in the internetwork.Host route-it is a route to a specific internetwork address that is network ID and Host ID and the Default route-it is a route that is configure when no match is found for the destination in the routing table.
A routing table includes the following information-
-Destination IP address
-IP address to which the packet is forward
-Outgoing network interface of the router
-Metric used to determine which path is most preferable when there are multiple paths to the destination network.
-Routes-network routes, host route and default route
A remote network is a network that is directly connected to the router. In other words a remote network is a network that can only be reached by sending the packet to another router. Remote network are added to the routing table using a dynamic routing protocol or by configuring the static routes. Dynamic routes are routes to remote network that are learned automatically by the router using the dynamic routing protocol. Static routes are the routes to network that a network administrator manually configured on the router.
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