Route Preference:

1. Prefix Length - The longest-matching route is preferred first. Prefix length trumps all other
route attributes.
2. Administrative Distance - In the event there are multiple routes to a destination with the
same prefix length, the route learned by the protocol with the lowest administrative distance
is preferred.
3. Metric - In the event there are multiple routes learned by the same protocol with same prefix
length, the route with the lowest metric is preferred. (If two or more of these routes have
equal metrics, load balancing across them may occur.)

Suppose a router receives a packet destined for the IP address 192.0.2.73. The router has in its
routing table the following three routes:

Protocol AD Metric Prefix Next Hop

OSPF 110 240 192.0.2.0/25 172.16.1.1

EIGRP 90 33789 192.0.2.0/24 172.16.2.1

RIP 120 6 192.0.2.64/26 172.16.3.1

To which next hop address will the packet be routed?

If you picked 172.16.3.1, you're correct. Why? A router evaluates routes in the following order.

1. Prefix Length - The longest-matching route is preferred first. Prefix length trumps all other
route attributes.
2. Administrative Distance - In the event there are multiple routes to a destination with the
same prefix length, the route learned by the protocol with the lowest administrative distance
is preferred.
3. Metric - In the event there are multiple routes learned by the same protocol with same prefix
length, the route with the lowest metric is preferred. (If two or more of these routes have
equal metrics, load balancing across them may occur.)

Following these rules, we can see that our RIP-learned route is preferred because it is the most
specific route: it has the longest matching prefix (26 bits in length compared to 25 and 24). These
rules hold true even when evaluating directly connected routes, which have an AD of zero:
Router# show ip route

Codes: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, M - mobile, B - BGP

D - EIGRP, EX - EIGRP external, O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area

N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 - OSPF NSSA external type 2

E1 - OSPF external type 1, E2 - OSPF external type 2

i - IS-IS, su - IS-IS summary, L1 - IS-IS level-1, L2 - IS-IS level-2

ia - IS-IS inter area, * - candidate default, U - per-user static route

o - ODR, P - periodic downloaded static route

Gateway of last resort is not set

172.16.0.0/24 is subnetted, 3 subnets

C 172.16.1.0 is directly connected, Loopback1

C 172.16.2.0 is directly connected, Loopback2

C 172.16.3.0 is directly connected, Loopback3

192.0.2.0/24 is variably subnetted, 3 subnets, 3 masks

S 192.0.2.64/26 [120/0] via 172.16.3.2

C 192.0.2.0/24 is directly connected, Loopback99

Router# show ip route 192.0.2.73

Routing entry for 192.0.2.64/26

Known via "static", distance 120, metric 0

Routing Descriptor Blocks:

* 172.16.3.2

Route metric is 0, traffic share count is 1

I'm afraid that this core concept is too often glossed over in CCNA and other introductory
networking classes. Remember: it doesn't matter if we have a less-specific route with a direct 100
Gbps connection to the destination, and a more-specific route which takes 15 hops over 56 Kbps
serial links through a bad neighborhood. The most-specific route will always be preferred.