ROUTE(8) MachTen Programmer’s Manual ROUTE(8)

NAME
route - manually manipulate the routing tables (Interim)

SYNOPSIS
route [ -n ] [ -q ] [ -v ] command [ [ modifiers ] args ]

DESCRIPTION
Route is a program used to manually manipulate the network
routing tables. It normally is not needed, as the system
routing table management daemon, routed(8C), should tend
to this task.

Route accepts five commands: add, to add a route, flush,
to remove all routes, delete, to delete a specific route,
change, to changes aspects of a route (such as its gate-
way), and monitor, to report any changes to the routing
information base, routing lookup misses, or suspected net-
work partionings.

The monitor command has the syntax
route [ -n ] monitor

The flush command has the syntax
route [ -n ] [ -n ] flush [ family ]

where the address family may be specified by any of the
-osi, -xns, or -inet keywords.

The other commands have the following syntax:

route [ -n ] command [ -net | -host ] destination gate-
way

where destination is the destination host or network,
gateway is the next-hop gateway to which packets should be
addressed. Routes to a particular host are distinguished
from those to a network by interpreting the Internet
address associated with destination. The optional key-
words -net and -host force the destination to be inter-
preted as a network or a host, respectively. Otherwise,
if the destination has a ‘‘local address part’’ of
INADDR_ANY, or if the destination is the symbolic name of
a network, then the route is assumed to be to a network;
otherwise, it is presumed to be a route to a host.

For example, 128.32 is interpreted as -host 128.0.0.32,
128.32.130 is interpreted as -host 128.32.0.130; -net
128.32 is interpreted as 128.32.0.0, and -net 128.32.130
is interpreted as 128.32.130.0.

If the route is via an interface rather than via a gate-
way, the -interface modifier should be specified; the
gateway given is the address of this host on the common
network, indicating the interface to be used for transmis-
sion.

The optional modifiers -xns, and -osi specify that all
subsequent addresses are in the XNS or OSI address fami-
lies, and the names must be numeric specifications rather
than symbolic names.

The optional -netmask qualifier is intended to acheieve
the effect of an OSI ESIS redirect with the netmask
option. One specifies an additional ensuing address
parameter (to be interpreted as a network mask). One can
override the implicit network mask generated in the inet
case by making sure this option follows the destination
parameter.

The optional modifiers -rtt, -rttvar, -sendpipe,
-recvpipe, -mtu, -hopcount, -expire, and -ssthresh provide
initial values to metrics maintained in the routing entry.
These may be individually locked by preceding each such
modifier to be locked by the -lock meta-modifier, or one
can specify that all ensuing metrics may be locked by the
-lockrest meta-modifier.

All symbolic names specified for a destination or gateway
are looked up first as a host name using gethostby-
name(3N). If this lookup fails, getnetbyname(3N) is then
used to interpret the name as that of a network.

Route uses a routing socket and the new message types
RTM_ADD, RTM_DELETE, and RTM_CHANGE. As such, only the
super-user may modify the routing tables.

If the flush command is specified, route will ‘‘flush’’
the routing tables of all gateway entries. One can choose
to flush only those routes whose destinations are of a
given address family, by specifying an optional keyword
describing which address family.

The -n option prevents attempts to print host and network
names symbolically when reporting actions. The -v option
causes additional details to be printed. The -q option
supresses all output.

DIAGNOSTICS
‘‘add [ host | network ] %s: gateway %s flags %x’’
The specified route is being added to the tables. The
values printed are from the routing table entry supplied
in the ioctl call. If the gateway address used was not
the primary address of the gateway (the first one returned
by gethostbyname), the gateway address is printed numeri-
cally as well as symbolically.

‘‘delete [ host | network ] %s: gateway %s flags %x’’
As above, but when deleting an entry.

‘‘%s %s done’’
When the -f flag is specified, each routing table entry
deleted is indicated with a message of this form.

‘‘Network is unreachable’’
An attempt to add a route failed because the gateway
listed was not on a directly-connected network. The next-
hop gateway must be given.

‘‘not in table’’
A delete operation was attempted for an entry which wasn’t
present in the tables.

‘‘routing table overflow’’
An add operation was attempted, but the system was low on
resources and was unable to allocate memory to create the
new entry.

SEE ALSO
netintro(4), routed(8), XNSrouted(8)

MachTen June 24, 1990 3