IP Routing Features 
Overview of IP Routing 
IP Route Table 
The IP route table contains routing paths to IP destinations. 
Note   The default gateway, which is configured as part of the IP address configura-
tion described in chapter 7, “IP Addressing”, is used only when routing is not 
enabled on the switch. 
The IP route table can receive the routing paths from the following sources: 
■  A directly-connected destination, which means there are no router hops 
to the destination 
■  A static IP route, which is a user-configured route 
The IP route table contains the best path to a destination. When the software 
receives paths from more than one of the sources listed above, the software 
compares the administrative distance of each path and selects the path with 
the lowest administrative distance. The administrative distance is a protocol-
independent value from 1 – 255. 
The IP route table is displayed by entering the CLI command show ip route 
from any context level in the console CLI. Here is an example of an entry in 
the IP route table: 
Destination  Network Mask  | Gateway  Type  Sub-Type  Metric  
--------------- --------------- + --------------- --------- ---------- ------  
1.1.0.0  255.255.0.0  | 99.1.1.2  connected  1  
Figure 7-2.  Example of IP Route Table Entry 
Each IP route table entry contains the destination’s IP address and subnet 
mask and the IP address of the next-hop router interface to the destination. 
Each entry also indicates route type. The type indicates how the IP route table 
received the route. 
To configure a static IP route, see “Configuring a Static IP Route” on 
page 7-18. 
IP Forwarding Cache 
The IP forwarding cache provides a fast-path mechanism for forwarding IP 
packets. The cache contains entries for IP destinations. When a ProCurve 
routing switch has completed processing and addressing for a packet and is 
ready to forward the packet, the device checks the IP forwarding cache for an 
entry to the packet’s destination. 
7-5