In a Nutshell: Routing Table Structure and Lookup Process

Parent, Child and Ultimate Routes

Rout er B
Parent Route: 172. 16. 0. 0/ 24 i s subnet t ed, 1 subnet s
Child Route: C 172. 16. 3. 0 i s di r ect l y connect ed, Fast Et her net 0
Ultimate Route: C 192. 168. 1. 0/ 24 i s di r ect l y connect ed, Ser i al 1

Parent Route
Created automatically whenever there is a route with a mask greater than the classful mask.
For non-VLSM routes, contains the mask of the child routes.
Child Routes
Routes with masks greater than the default classful mask.
Ultimate Routes
Routes with masks equal to or less than default classful mask (includes supernet routes.

Routing Table Lookup Process

Routing Table process matches:
The routing table process compares the left-most bits in the packets destination IP address with the left-
most bits in the route in the routing table, looking for a longest-bit-match.
The subnet mask of the route in the routing table specifies the minimum number of left-most bits
that must match.
Before checking child routes, the classful mask of the parent route is used.
For child routes the parent routes mask is used.
For VLSM routes, the mask is contained with the child route.



IP Packet Destination Address = 192.168.1.10
16 bits of 172.16.0.0 do not match, so child routes are not checked.
24 bits of 192.168.1.0/24 do match, so this route is used.
IP Packet Destination Address = 172.16.2.1
16 bits of 172.16.0.0 do match, so child routes are checked.
24 bits of 172.16.1.0 do not match, so continue to next child route.
24 bits of 172.16.2.0 do match, so this route is used!

Routing Table and VLSM




Parent Route
Created automatically whenever there is a route with a mask greater than the classful mask.
For VLSM routes, the mask is the default classful mask.
Child Routes
Routes with masks greater than the default classful mask.
For VLSM routes, each child route has its own mask.