A static route configured with only the next hop address can participate in route selection only after the next hop iteration is successful. Otherwise, the static route cannot be preferred. A static route configured with both the next hop address and the outbound interface, however, can directly participate in route selection. Only the preferred static route is delivered to the FIB table to guide packet forwarding.
For example, there are two static routes: ip route-static 10.97.32.243 255.255.255.255 Pos1/0/0 10.83.25.49 and ip route-static 10.97.32.243 255.255.255.255 10.83.25.221. The route configured with an outbound interface is preferred. The static route configured with the outbound interface does not need to be iterated, and therefore the relay depth of the static route is 0. The static route that is not configured with an outbound interface needs to be iterated once, and therefore the relay depth of the static route is 1. Based on next hop iteration, the static route with the smallest relay depth is preferred.
