How to add a persistent route in Sierra

Question

Level 1

10 points

How to add a persistent route in Sierra

Hi,

I need to add a persistent static route on my iMac running macOS Sierra but everything I tried failed so far:

Using a LaunchAgent as explained here: https://www.jverdeyen.be/mac/persistent-static-routes-mac-os-x/
Using a StartupItem as shown there: https://nellen.it/blog/2012/01/permanent-static-routes-for-mac-os-x/

What I want to do is to make sure all traffic to a specific subnet like 172.31.0.0/16 goes through the Ethernet connection when the default is the WiFi. And of course the configuration needs to remain after a machine reboot...

Any clue on how to do that on Sierra?

Cedric

iMac, macOS Sierra (10.12.3)

Posted on Mar 15, 2017 9:03 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Oct 19, 2017 9:05 AM in response to zepom69

I would recommend you accomplish this with the networksetup utility from the command line. You can set it to add persistent static routes for individual network profiles. I used it to successfully accomplish exactly what you're talking about for both my "Home - Docked" network location, and my "Home - Wifi" location. Be careful that you do not have hyphens in the network service name that you're adding the routes into - it doesn't seem to "like" that (the network locations name doesn't seem to matter much, however).

Here's a link for you to check out: http://www.marcoach.nl/persistent-static-routes-on-os-x/
Also, from a terminal window: "man networksetup" gives you all the usage info you'll need.

Hope that helps!

Best,

Pete

Reply

Answer 2

etresoft

Level 9

56,296 points

Mar 15, 2017 9:40 AM in response to zepom69

Hello Cedric,

Can you be more specific about what exactly you tried? The first link you posted should have worked if you used the correct settings for your specific needs. The second link will never work.

Maybe review the information from here: https://superuser.com/questions/756134/how-to-direct-ip-route-through-specific-i nterface-in-os-x

Reply

Answer 3

etresoft

Level 9

56,296 points

Mar 16, 2017 8:29 AM in response to zepom69

Hello again zepom69,

You have to be clear about exactly what is or is not happening. In your first post, you said it "failed". One of the links you tried has been obsolete for over ten years. The other one was correct, but the specific routing being performed was not applicable to what you are right attempting. So I can't tell what the problem is.

Can you explain exactly what system modifications you have made and exactly what the behaviour is?

Reply

Answer 4

zepom69 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 16, 2017 9:40 AM in response to etresoft

Sorry for not being clear. I have the following configuration :

- en0 : 172.31.108.187 defaut gw 172.31.108.2

- en1 : 192.168.0.145 default gw 192.168.0.1

What I need to do is to make all the traffic to 172.31.0.0/16 go through en0. To do that, I use the following command and that works fine:

sudo route add -net 172.31.0.0/16 172.31.108.2

But as soon as I restart the computer, this route is lost. I can see the line disappeared when I ran the netstat -rn command.

I tried to set up a LaunchAgent as explained in the first link I posted, but the route was still not there after a reboot. If I look down in the comments, someone else is complaining that it does not work on El Capitan either.

Thank you for the time you take for helping me! I hope I was more clear this time...

Reply

Answer 5

zepom69 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 16, 2017 6:18 AM in response to zepom69

Thank you for your reply. My problem is about making the configuration persistent. If I follow what is explained in the article you sent me, the configuration is lost when I reboot the computer.

Reply

Answer 6

etresoft

Level 9

56,296 points

Mar 16, 2017 2:27 PM in response to zepom69

Hello again zepom69,

Thanks. It seems the problem is just the launch agent then. What are the contents of your launch agent? How have you installed it? How did you load it?

Reply