Technical Tip: FortiGate routing table conditions

[haljawhari]

Description
This article describes the conditions necessary to have a valid next-hop or default gateway on a FortiGate and get the route in the routing table.
This applies to DHCP, PPoE, or static routes.

Scope
All FortiGate or VDOM running in NAT/Route mode.

Solution
A FortiGate will consider a next-hop or default gateway valid and insert it in the routing table under the following conditions :

- Static routes on interfaces with a static IP address : next-hop or default gateway must be in the same subnet as the interface and interface must be up.

If other similar static routes are configured on other interfaces, the distance must be equal or lower.

- DHCP interface : next-hop or default gateway acquired by the DHCP server must be in the same subnet as the interface

- PPPoE : next-hop or default gateway acquired can be in a different subnet than the interface

- For any interface type : if a ping-server is configured (set detectserver 'IP'), it must reply to the ping, otherwise the static routes are invalidated for the given interface.

Note:
The default administrative distance of dynamically acquired routes (Example: from PPPoE or DHCP server) is 5.
The default administrative distance of manually created static routes is 10.

See other related articles about Default or Static routes.

Illustration of PPPoE where the FortiGate will create a connected interface in /32 a the next-hop in a different subnet than the interface itself.

# get router info routing-table all

S* 0.0.0.0/0 [1/0] via 10.5.98.1, ppp0                                       <----- Next hop.
C 192.168.1.0/24 is directly connected, internal
C 10.5.98.1/32 is directly connected, ppp0                                <----- /32 interface created for the next-hop.
C 10.7.255.211/32 is directly connected, ppp0                           <----- Interface.

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