Choosing Paths

The Routing Table

The routing table contains the following information:
Addresses of all known networks.
Next router in the path to the network.
Interface of the router used to forward packets to the network.
Cost of using this path.
Incase of the existence of multiple paths to the same network the path with the lowest cost is used.
Static and Dynamic Routers

Administrators have to manually configure routes between each network when the routers do not communicate amongst themselves.
Such routers are called Static routers.
This type of configuration is however possible with only small types of routers.
It also does not provide flexibility of dynamic routing.
Its advantage is that complete control remains with the network administrator.