- a rule table determining how a router routes a Payload based on the destination’s IP Address
- stores the destination prefix of an IP Address, and the next Hop required to go in that direction, allowing Packets to navigate to their destinations.
- Each Host’s routing table has a default route, pointer to a Router of last resort on the subnet, called a Default Gateway
- The router picks the match in the routing table with the longest Prefix
- A destination accessible via Data Link Layer will have
0.0.0.0 for its Gateway, and will have something listed under its “Interface” like “enp0s1” for an Ethernet connection