In studying for your CCNA exam and preparing to earn this valuable certification, you may be tempted to spend little time studying static routing and head right for the more exciting dynamic routing protocols like RIP, EIGRP, and OSPF. This is an understandable mistake, but still a mistake. Static routing is not complicated, but it’s an important topic on the CCNA exam and a valuable skill for real-world networking.
To create static routes on a Cisco router, you use the ip route command followed by the destination network, network mask, and either the next-hop IP address or the local exit interface. It’s vital to keep that last part in mind – you’re either configuring the IP address of the downstream router, or the interface on the local router that will serve as the exit interface.
Let’s say your local router has a serial0 interface with an IP address of 200.1.1.1/30, and the downstream router that will be the next hop will receive packets on its serial1 interface with an IP address of 200.1.1.2/30. The static route will be for packets destined for the 172.10.1.0 network. Either of the following ip route statements would be...