How a router decides where your data goes

How a router decides where your data goes

A router asks one question of every packet: which of my routes is the most specific match?

It keeps a table of routes, each covering a range of addresses. A packet for 10.20.30.7 matches four of them, from "anything" down to 10.20.30.*. The narrowest one wins, and the packet leaves through that port.

The next packet gets the same check and may go somewhere else entirely.

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