Route tables and gateways
Select forwarding paths and diagnose active routes without changing firewall policy.
Route tables define where a network sends traffic for destination prefixes. They contain connected routes, approved peering routes, and explicitly configured gateway routes.
Add a static route
Under Network → Routes, specify a destination CIDR and a next-hop gateway. The gateway must be reachable through a directly connected subnet and belong to a permitted project routing configuration. A droplet used as a router must also have the required forwarding configuration inside its guest.
A static route is not a substitute for an interface address. Creating a route to a guest does not assign that guest an address or enable its kernel's packet forwarding.
Route selection
The most specific matching prefix is selected. For identical prefixes, Infra
uses the explicit route priority, where a lower integer has higher preference.
The default priority is 100; valid values are integers 1 through 65535.
An identical prefix and priority with different unsupported next hops is rejected
rather than being interpreted as multipath routing.
Connected subnet routes cannot be replaced by a static route. A default route
0.0.0.0/0 affects IPv4 only; IPv6 needs its own ::/0 route and gateway support.
Routes received through peering cannot make the connection transitive.
Inspect effective routes
The Effective routes view shows prefix, origin, next hop, priority, and applied revision. A saved static route can remain pending on an unreachable node. Compare the desired entry with its observed deployment before changing application traffic.
Guest routing is a second layer. A guest can have an older default route or policy routing that sends traffic elsewhere. Compare its route lookup with the managed network's effective route.
Gateway failure
A route with an unavailable next hop remains a configured route with a failed health condition. It does not automatically choose an arbitrary guest as a replacement gateway. Configure a supported redundant gateway service when failover is required.
A route update can interrupt established flows or create asymmetric forwarding. Apply changes with a recovery path that does not depend on the route being edited. Keep console access available during administrative network changes.
Remove a route
Deleting a route withdraws that forwarding entry after reconciliation. It does not undo packets already delivered, clear application sessions, or remove guest routes configured manually. The operation reports nodes that have not adopted the withdrawal.
Use Route API for revision-aware changes, egress gateways for outbound translation, and mesh networking when the underlay path itself is failing.