Allied Telesis AT-S63 User Manual

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AT-S63 Management Software Features Guide
Section VII: Routing
307
Static Routes
In order for the switch to route an IPv4 packet to a remote network or 
subnet, there must be a route to the destination in the routing table of the 
switch. The route must consist of the IP address of the remote destination 
and the IP address of the next hop to reaching the destination.
One type of route to a remote destination is referred to as a static route. 
You create static routes by manually entering them into the routing table. 
Static routes are never deleted from the routing table by the switch, even 
when they are inactive.
When you create a static route, the switch’s management software 
automatically adds it to the interface that is a part of the same subnet as 
the next hop of the route. Consequently, before you can create a static 
route, the switch must have a routing interface that is a member of the 
same subnet as the next hop of the route.
For example, assume a switch supported four subnets with four interfaces 
named VLAN4-0, VLAN11-0, VLAN12-0, and VLAN12-1. If you created a 
static route to a remote destination that had as its next hop an IP address 
in the subnet of the VLAN4-0 interface, the switch would automatically add 
the route to the VLAN4-0 interface.
A new static route immediately becomes available for all of the interfaces 
on a switch to use for routing packets to the remote subnet. For example, 
referring to the previous example, a static route added to the VLAN4-0 
interface would be available to all the other interfaces on the same switch.
The switch can store up to 1024 static routes.
A static route is functional as soon as it is added to an interface and cannot 
be disabled. You must delete a route from the table to stop a switch from 
routing packets with the route.
Static routes have a parameter called the metric that is a measurement of 
the cost of the switch when it forwards packets to the remote destination 
specified in the static route. The metric or cost is simply the hop count. The 
default setting for a static route is one hop. The value can be set higher to 
make a static route more costly. Networks, subnets, and nodes directly 
connected to a router have a hop count of 0.
When the switch receives a packet from a remote subnet, it increases the 
metric or cost of the packet before forwarding it on to the next hop. A 
remote destination with a hop count of 16 is considered unreachable.
Static routes also have a parameter for assigning a preference value. The 
switch uses this value to select the active routes when there are multiple 
static or dynamic routes in the routing table to the same remote