Overview

Routing in Networks: Routing Tables

A routing table has two columns:

1. The address of a destination.
2. The address of the destination of the next hop.

A Routing Table Destination 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next Hop * 2 6 4 4 6 2 2 4 4 6 2 2 4 The above routing table at node 1 of the below network shows the next hop for each destination. Figure 9:

Every packet arriving at a router contains the address of its destination, which can be either an endpoint or a destination network. The router, or switch controller, consults the routing table to decide the next hop for the packet.