route(1M)
NAME
route - manually manipulate the routing tables
SYNOPSIS
route [-fnvq] sub-command [ [modifiers] args]
route [-fnvq] add | delete [modifiers] destination gateway
[args]
route [-fnvq] change | get [modifiers] destination [ gateway
[args]]
route [-fn] monitor [modifiers]
route [-fnvq] flush [modifiers]
DESCRIPTION
route manually manipulates the network routing tables. These
tables are normally maintained by the system routing daemon,
such as in.routed(1M) and in.ripngd(1M).
route supports a limited number of general options, but a
rich command language. Users can specify an arbitrary
request that can be delivered by means of the programmatic
interface discussed in route(7P).
route uses a routing socket and the new message types
RTM_ADD, RTM_DELETE, RTM_GET, and RTM_CHANGE. Only
superusers can modify routing tables.
OPTIONS
-f Flush the routing tables of all gateway entries. If
you use the -f option in conjunction with any of the
route sub-commands, route flushes the gateways before
performing the sub-command. Specify the table to
flush by placing the -inet or -inet6 modifier immedi-
ately after the -f option. If unspecified, flushing
IPv4 (-inet) routes is the default.
-n Prevent attempts to print host and network names sym-
bolically when reporting actions. This option is use-
ful when name servers are unavailable.
-v Print additional details in verbose mode.
-q Suppress all output.
Sub-commands
The following sub-commands are supported:
add Add a route.
change
Change aspects of a route (such as its gateway).
delete
Delete a specific route.
flush Remove all gateway entries from the routing table.
get Look up and display the route for a destination.
monitor
Continuously report any changes to the routing infor-
mation base, routing lookup misses, or suspected net-
work partitionings.
The add and delete sub-commands have the following syntax:
route [ -fnvq ] cmd destination gateway [metric/netmask]
where cmd is add or delete, destination is the destination
host or network, and gateway is the next-hop intermediary
through which packets should be routed. Modifiers described
in OPERANDS can be placed anywhere on the command line.
The get and change sub-commands have the following syntax:
route [ -fnvq ] cmd destination [gateway [metric/netmask]]
where cmd is get or change, destination is the destination
host or network, and gateway is the next-hop intermediary
through which packets should be routed. Modifiers described
in OPERANDS can be placed anywhere on the command line.
The monitor sub-command has the following syntax:
route monitor [ -inet | -inet6 ]
OPERANDS
route executes its sub-commands on routes to destinations by
way of gateways.
Destinations and Gateways
By default, destination and gateway addresses are inter-
preted as IPv4 addresses. All symbolic names are tried first
as a host name, using getipnodebyname(3SOCKET). If this
lookup fails in the AF_INET case, getnetbyname(3SOCKET)
interprets the name as that of a network.
Including an optional modifier on the command line before
the address changes how the route sub-command interprets it.
The following modifiers are supported:
-inet Force the address to be interpreted as an IPv4
address, that is, under the AF_INET address family.
-inet6
Force the address to be interpreted as an IPv6
address, that is, under the AF_INET6 address family.
For IPv4 addresses, routes to a particular host are by
default distinguished from those to a network by interpret-
ing the Internet address specified as the destination. If
the destination has a local address part (that is, the por-
tion not covered by the netmask) of 0, or if the destination
is resolved as the symbolic name of a network, then the
route is assumed to be to a network; otherwise, it is
presumed to be a route to a host.
You can force this selection by using one of the following
modifiers:
-host Force the destination to be interpreted as a host.
-net Force the destination to be interpreted as a network.
For example:
Destination Destination Equivalent
128.32 -host 128.0.0.32
128.32.130 - host 128.32.0.130
-net 128.32 128.32.0.0
-net 128.32.130 128.32.130.0
Two modifiers avoid confusion between addresses and keywords
(for example., host used as a symbolic host name). You can
distinguish a destination by preceding it with the -dst
modifier. You can distinguish a gateway address by using the
-gateway modifier. If the destination is directly reachable
by way of an interface requiring no intermediary IP router
to act as a gateway, this can be indicated by using the
-interface or -iface modifier.
In the following example, the route does not refer to an
external gateway (router), but rather to one of the
machine's interfaces. Packets with IP destination addresses
matching the destination and mask on such a route are sent
out on the interface identified by the gateway address. For
interfaces using the ARP protocol, this type of route is
used to specify that all matching destinations are local to
the physical link. That is, a host could be configured to
ARP for all addresses, without regard to the configured
interface netmask, by adding a default route using this com-
mand. For example:
example# route add default hostname -interface
where gateway address hostname is the name or IP address
associated with the network interface over which all match-
ing packets should be sent. On a host with a single network
interface, hostname is usually the same as the nodename
returned by the uname -n command. See uname(1).
For backward compatibility with older systems, directly
reachable routes can also be specified by placing a 0 after
the gateway address:
example# route add default hostname 0
This value was once a route metric, but this metric is no
longer used. If the value is specified as 0, then the desti-
nation is directly reachable (equivalent to specifying
-interface). If it is non-zero but cannot be interpreted as
a subnet mask, then a gateway is used (default).
With the AF_INET address family or an IPv4 address, a
separate subnet mask can be specified. This can be specified
in one of the following ways:
o IP address following the gateway address . This is
typically specified in decimal dot notation as for
inet_addr(3SOCKET) rather than in symbollic form.
o IP address following the -netmask qualifier.
o Slash character and a decimal length appended to the
destination address.
If a subnet mask is not specified, the mask used is the sub-
net mask of the output interface selected by the gateway
address, if the classful network of the destination is the
same as the classful network of the interface. Otherwise,
the classful network mask for the destination address is
used.
Each of the following examples creates an IPv4 route to the
destination 192.0.2.32 subnet with a subnet mask of
255.255.255.224:
example# route add 192.0.2.32/27 somegateway
example# route add 192.0.2.32 -netmask 255.255.255.224 somegateway
example# route add 192.0.2.32 somegateway 255.255.255.224
For IPv6, only the slash format is accepted. The following
example creates an IPv6 route to the destination 33fe:: with
a netmask of 16 one-bits followed by 112 zero-bits.
example# route add -inet6 3ffe::/16 somegateway
In cases where the gateway does not uniquely identify the
output interface (for example, when several interfaces have
the same address), you can use the -ifp ifname modifier to
specify the interface by name. For example, -ifp lo0 associ-
ates the route with the lo0 interface.
Routing Flags
Routes have associated flags that influence operation of
the protocols when sending to destinations matched by the
routes. These flags can be set (and in some cases cleared,
indicated by ~) by including the following modifiers on the
command line:
Modifier Flag Description
-interface ~RTF_GATEWAY Destination is directly reachable
-iface ~RTF_GATEWAY Alias for interface modifier
-static RTF_STATIC Manually added route
-nostatic ~RTF_STATIC Pretend route was added by kernel
or routing daemon
-reject RTF_REJECT Emit an ICMP unreachable when
matched
-blackhole RTF_BLACKHOLE Silently discard packets duing
updates
-proto1 RTF_PROTO1 Set protocol specific routing flag
#1
-proto2 RTF_PROTO2 Set protocol specific routing flag
#2
-private RTF_PRIVATE Do not advertise this route
-multirt RTF_MULTIRT Creates the specified redundant
route
-setsrc RTF_SETSRC Assigns the default source address
The optional modifiers -rtt, -rttvar, -sendpipe, -recvpipe,
-mtu, -hopcount, -expire, and -ssthresh provide initial
values to quantities maintained in the routing entry by
transport level protocols, such as TCP. These can be indivi-
dually locked either by preceding each modifier to be locked
by the -lock meta-modifier, or by specifying that all ensu-
ing metrics can be locked by the -lockrest meta-modifier.
Some transport layer protocols can support only some of
these metrics. The following optional modifiers are sup-
ported:
-expire
Lifetime for the entry. This optional modifier is
not currently supported.
-hopcount
Maximum hop count. This optional modifier is not
currently supported.
-mtu Maximum MTU in bytes.
-recvpipe
Receive pipe size in bytes.
-rtt Round trip time in microseconds.
-rttvar
Round trip time variance in microseconds.
-sendpipe
Send pipe size in bytes.
-ssthresh
Send pipe size threshold in bytes.
Compatibility
The modifiers host and net are taken to be equivalent to
-host and -net. To specify a symbolic address that matches
one of these names, use the dst or gateway keyword to dis-
tinguish it. For example: -dst host
The following two flags are also accepted for compatibility
with older systems, but have no effect.
Modifier Flag
-cloning RTF_CLONING
-xresolve RTF_XRESOLVE
The -ifa hostname modifier is also accepted, but has no
effect.
FILES
/etc/defaultrouter
List of default routers
/etc/hosts
List of host names and net addresses
/etc/networks
List of network names and addresses
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | SUNWcsu |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
uname(1), in.ripngd(1M), in.routed(1M), netstat(1M),
routed(1M), ioctl(2), getipnodebyname(3SOCKET),
getnetbyname(3SOCKET), inet_addr(3SOCKET), defaultrouter(4),
hosts(4), networks(4), attributes(5), ARP(7P), ip(7P),
route(7P), routing(7P)
DIAGNOSTICS
add [ host| network] destination:gateway flags
The specified route is being added to the tables.
The values printed are from the routing table entry
supplied in the ioctl(2) call. If the gateway address
used was not the primary address of the gateway (the
first one returned by getipnodebyname(3SOCKET)) the
gateway address is printed numerically as well as sym-
bolically.
delete [ host| network] destination:gateway flags
change [ host| network] destination:gateway flags
As add, but when deleting or changing an entry.
destination done
When the -f flag is specified, or the flush sub-
command is used, each routing table entry deleted is
indicated with a message of this form.
Network is unreachable
An attempt to add a route failed because the gateway
listed was not on a directly-connected network. Give
the next-hop gateway instead.
not in table
A delete operation was attempted for an entry that is
not in the table.
entry exists
An add operation was attempted for a route that
already exists in the kernel.
routing table overflow
An operation was attempted, but the system was unable
to allocate memory to create the new entry.
NOTES
Specifying that destinations are local (with the -interface
modifier) assumes that the routers implement proxy ARP,
meaning that they respond to ARP queries for all reachable
destinations. Normally, using either router discovery or RIP
is more reliable and scalable than using proxy ARP. See
in.routed(1M) for information related to RIP.
Combining the all destinations are local route with subnet
or network routes can lead to unpredictable results. The
search order as it relates to the all destinations are local
route are undefined and can vary from release to release.
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