252 CHAPTER 26: STATIC ROUTING CONFIGURATION
Application
Environment of Static
Routing
Before configuring a static route, you need to know the following concepts:
1 Destination address and mask
In the ip route-static command, an IPv4 address is in dotted decimal format and 
a mask can be either in dotted decimal format or in the form of mask length (the 
digits of consecutive 1s in the mask).
2 Output interface and next hop address
While configuring a static route, you can specify either the output interface or the 
next hop address depending on the specific occasion. The next hop address can 
not be a local interface IP address; otherwise, the route configuration will not take 
effect.
In fact, all the route entries must have a next hop address. When forwarding a 
packet, a router first searches the routing table for the route to the destination 
address of the packet. The system can find the corresponding link layer address 
and forward the packet only after the next hop address is specified.
When specifying the output interface, note that:
■ If the output interface is a NULL 0 interface, there is no need to configure the 
next hop address.
■ You are not recommended to specify a broadcast interface (such as VLAN 
interface) as the output interface, because a broadcast interface may have 
multiple next hops. If you have to do so, you must specify the corresponding 
next hop for the output interface.
■ Other attributes
You can configure different preferences for different static routes so that route 
management policies can be applied more flexibly. For example, specifying the 
same preference for different routes to the same destination enables load sharing, 
while specifying different preferences for these routes enables route backup.
Configuring a Static 
Route
Configuration
Prerequisites
Before configuring a static route, you need to configure the IP addresses for 
related interfaces.
Configuration Procedure Follow these steps to configure a static route:
To do…  Use the command…  Remarks 
Enter system view  system-view -