Source Routing

What Does Source Routing Mean?

Source routing is a specific routing process where senders can specify the route that data packets take through a network. This allows for troubleshooting and various transmission goals. Source routing is an alternative to traditional routing where packets just move through a network based on their destination.

Techopedia Explains Source Routing

There are two different types of source routing – loose and strict. In loose source routing, the packet has to pass through specific listed hops, but in strict source routing, the sender specifies every step on a hop-by-hop basis.

While there are some uses for source routing that experts would term legitimate, such as clearly laying out transmission trajectories, there are also uses that could be beneficial to hackers in smurfing or related attacks. Although source routing is typically not needed, it is an alternative for senders to establish specific broadcast goals.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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