The routing table of a router stores information about:
- Directly connected routes - These routes come from the active router interfaces. Routers add a directly connected route when an interface is configured with an IP address and is activated.
- Remote routes - These are remote networks connected to other routers. Routes to these networks can either be statically configured or dynamically configured using dynamic routing protocols.
Specifically, a routing table is a data file in RAM that is used to store route information about directly connected and remote networks. The routing table contains network or next hop associations. These associations tell a router that a particular destination can be optimally reached by sending the packet to a specific router that represents the next hop on the way to the final destination. The next hop association can also be the outgoing or exit interface to the next destination.
The figure identifies the directly connected networks and remote networks of router R1.