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Routing & Switching · Intermediate

Recursive Route Lookup

Resolving a route's next-hop address by performing another routing table lookup to find the outgoing interface.

Definition

When a static or BGP route points to a next hop that is not directly connected, the router must look up the next hop itself in the routing table. Multiple recursive lookups add processing on legacy switching paths, although CEF precomputes the resolution. BGP next-hop reachability depends entirely on this process.

Example

An iBGP route with next hop 10.255.0.2 is resolved via an OSPF route to 10.255.0.2/32 out Gi0/1.

Exam tip

A BGP route whose next hop cannot be resolved recursively is marked inaccessible and not installed.

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