Enabling Static Routing on Cisco Devices

Easy Static Routing configuration on Cisco Router / Switches

Static routing occurs when you manually add routes in each router’s routing table. The advantages of static routing are mentioned below:

1) It puts no overhead on the router CPU (dynamic routing protocols eg OSPF, EIGRP, RIP are CPU intensive).

2) There is no bandwidth usage between routers for routing managenent traffic (as for “Routing Updates” in dynamic routing protocols).

3) It adds security because the administrator can choose to allow routing access to certain networks only and can define a specific path for specific traffic etc.

But Static routing also has the following disadvantages:

1) The administrator must really understand the internetwork and how each router is connected in order to configure routes correctly (more responsibility on administrator).

2) If a single network is added to the internetwork, the administrator has to add a route to it on all routers by hand (this can be a lengthy job if you have many routers in your network).

3) If one network or next-hop has gone down, you will have to manually edit the routing entries in all affected routers.

The command syntax to configuring a static route in cisco router’s routing table is:

Router#configure terminal

Router(config)#ip route [destination_network] [destination_mask]  

     [next-hop_address or exit interface]

An example of configuring a static route is mentioned below:

Router#configure terminal

Router(config)#ip route 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 15.0.0.2

Where 10.0.0.0 / 255.0.0.0 is destination network and 15.0.0.2 is the next-hop address of far-end router.