FreeBSD 12 – Static Route Not Applied at Boot – routing Service Correction

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Traffic to specific networks fails after reboot because static routes are missing.

Environment & Reproduction

Route added manually with route add but not persisted in rc.conf.

netstat -rn
cat /etc/rc.conf

Root Cause Analysis

Runtime route changes are ephemeral without route_* declarations in boot configuration.

Quick Triage

Compare runtime route table with expected policy routes.

route -n get 

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Validate routing service startup and route syntax in rc.conf.

service routing onestatus
grep -E "static_routes|route_" /etc/rc.conf

Solution – Primary Fix

Define static routes in rc.conf and reload routing service.

sysrc static_routes="netA"
sysrc route_netA="-net 10.20.0.0/16 192.0.2.1"
service routing restart

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Use dynamic routing daemon if topology changes frequently.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Routes persist after reboot and target subnets are reachable.

reboot
netstat -rn

Rollback Plan

Remove recent route_* entries if they cause asymmetric routing side effects.

Prevention & Hardening

Maintain route baseline templates and post-reboot network validation tests.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

No route to host, route missing after reboot.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for freebsd-12.

View all freebsd-12 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

rc.conf routing variables and FreeBSD network administration handbook.