Understanding Static and Default Routes

Static routes are useful in stub networks in which we want to control the routing behavior by manually configuring destination networks into the routing table:

Router(config)#ip route 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 192.168.2.5

A floating static route can be configured when redundant connections exist and you want to use the redundant link if the primary fails. This is configured by adding a higher administrative distance at the end of a static route:

Router(config)#ip route 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 192.168.2.9 2

A default route is a gateway of last resort for a router when there isn’t a specific match for an IP destination network in the routing table (such as packets destined for the Internet):

Router(config)#ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 serial 0/0

With routing protocols, you can specify a default network, which is a network in the routing table that routing devices consider to be the gateway of last resort. Using their routing protocols, they determine the best path to the default network:

Router(config)#ip default-network 192.168.1.0