Understanding Routing Policy Terms

Routing policies are made up of one or more terms. Each routing policy term is identified by a term name. The name can contain letters, numbers, and hyphens (-) and can be up to 255 characters long. To include spaces in the name, enclose the entire name in double quotation marks.

Each term contains a set of match conditions and a set of actions:

• Match conditions are criteria that a route must match before the actions can be applied. If a route matches all criteria, one or more actions are applied to the route.
• Actions specify whether to accept or reject the route, control how a series of policies are evaluated, and manipulate the characteristics associated with a route.

Generally, a router compares a route against the match conditions of each term in a routing policy, starting with the first and moving through the terms in the order in which they are defined, until a match is made and an explicitly configured or default action of accept or reject is taken. If none of the terms in the policy match the route, the router compares the route against the next policy, and so on, until either an action is taken or the default policy is evaluated.

If none of the match conditions of each term evaluates to true, the final action is executed. The final action is defined in an unnamed term. Additionally, you can define a default action (either accept or reject) that overrides any action intrinsic to the protocol.

Related Topics

• Junos OS Feature Support Reference for SRX Series and J Series Devices
• Routing Policies Overview
• Example: Creating a Routing Policy Term