What's the difference between Default route and static route?

[fanli800510]

Hi

I wondered I read the the concept a lot of times, but I don't get it. Does someone could explain me detailed. Thanks a lot.

Mike

[paul.matthews]

There is not a lot of detail to be honest. the two are quite different.

A default route is a route that will match ANYTHING - typically 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0, That can be manually configured or generated by a routing protocol. An OSPF Totally Stubby Area will have an automatically generated default route.

A static route is one that has been manually configured. in a Cisco router that would be by emtering the command

ip route

In a routing table, the letter at the left identifies the source of the route. A static route will be identified by the letter S.

Most default routes will also be static, but that is not true the other way round.

Paul.

[Richard Burts]

I like the way that Paul explained default route in identifying 2 important characteristics of default route:

- a default route is a route that matches anything.

- a default route may be statically configured or may be advertised by a dynamic routing protocol.

I would add that the routing logic of IOS is to search the routing table for the most specific match. If there is no specific match and if there is a default route in the routing table then IOS will use the default route to make the forwarding decision.

I would suggest that there are equivalent characteristics of static routes:

- a static route is manually configured not dynamically learned.

- a static route may be a default route, or it may be a route to a supernet, to a specific network, to a specific subnet, or to a specific host.

HTH

Rick

[GillieLucent]

Hi Rick,

That was great explanation.

Thanks,

Vijaybabu

[Richard Burts]

Vijaybabu

Thank you for the compliment (and thank you for the rating). These are two important concepts and it is important to have a good understanding of each one.

HTH

Rick