A route may refer to any of the following:

  1. In general, a route refers to the path a data packet travels on a network. The route includes every device that handles the packet between its source to its destination, including routers, switches, and firewalls.

There are many ways for intermediary devices to decide which route data should take. The five major routing methods are unicast, broadcast, multicast, anycast, and geocast.

  1. Route is a command line tool that allows a user to view and configure their operating system’s routing table.

Network terms, Router

  • See the Windows route command page for further information about this command.
  • For information about the Linux command, see our route Linux command reference.
  • Network and network card help and support.