Introduction
Our last blog post on this subject reviewed what a Router is, by providing a specific definition for it and providing example scenarios as to where it can be deployed in installed.
It can be used for either the home or the business, in order to fortify your lines defense.
Essentially, the Router acts like a “traffic cop” on the network highway, guiding the flow of the data packets from their point of origination to their final point of destination.
However, in order to accomplish this task, the Router needs what is known as a “Routing Table”.
This serves as a super sophisticated road map for the Router by literally telling it the best and most efficient route in which to send the Data Packets across the network medium.
What the Routing Table Is
As mentioned, one of the most critical functions of the Router is to send the network communications and its associated data packets to the proper device.
This is done via the “Routing Table”. It can be technically defined as follows:
“A routing table is a data file that acts as a map and is often installed on a router. The routing table contains information about various routes between devices in order to present the most efficient paths for data packets.”
To illustrate this point, suppose that Company ABC is connected to the outside Internet, and is located at Point A.
A remote office is located at Point B, thousands of miles away. The remote employee at this location wishes to send a file to a co-worker at Point A.
Once this message has been sent at arrives at the perimeter of Company ABC’s network, the Router will first inspect the data packets to make sure that there are no malformed or malicious ones.
If there are none, it will then accept these data packets that constitute the file and look up the destination TCP/IP address of the recipient in the Routing Table.
Once that has been determined, the Router will then transmit those data packets to the right device so that the file can appropriately receive and safely opened.
An example of a Routing Table as seen through the Command Line Interface is illustrated below:
Conclusions
Our next blog post will examine a “close cousin” of the Router, which is namely the Switch.
