Exercise 2: Longest Prefix Match Between a Specific Route and the Default Route — Possible Solution ==================================================================== Which route wins: the 192.168.2.0/24 route. Explanation: Per the chapter, "when more than one route could match a destination, the most specific one wins -- this is called longest prefix match: the entry with the largest CIDR number (the most specific subnet) is preferred over a broader, more general route." Both routes in this router's table genuinely match the destination 192.168.2.55 -- the 192.168.2.0/24 route matches because .55 falls within that subnet, and the default route (0.0.0.0/0) matches by definition, since a /0 prefix matches every possible destination address as the chapter's own example table notes ("the default route -- 'everything else'"). Comparing the two matching routes by prefix length: 192.168.2.0/24 has a /24 prefix (24 network bits), while the default route 0.0.0.0/0 has a /0 prefix (0 network bits). /24 is a longer, more specific prefix than /0, so per the longest-prefix-match rule, the /24 route is selected over the default route. This makes practical sense independent of the rule's own name: the default route exists specifically to catch destinations that don't match anything more specific -- per the chapter's own routing-table example, it's the catch-all for "everything else." Since a genuinely specific, matching route to 192.168.2.0/24 already exists, that route correctly takes priority, and the packet gets forwarded according to whatever next-hop/interface is specified for that specific route, rather than falling through to the router's own general-purpose default path. WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER ------------------------------ This identifies that both routes technically match, then resolves the conflict using the chapter's own explicit longest-prefix-match rule (comparing /24 against /0 directly) rather than assuming the default route wins simply because it was mentioned last.