On 06/07/2014 03:03 AM, lee wrote: > Manuel Wolfshant <wolfy at nobugconsulting.ro> writes: > [..] > You're right, I overlooked the 'dev'. > > Why doesn't the error message simply say "syntax error" and perhaps even > points out that "dev" might be missing? Because the program "ip" is pretty cryptic, despite being way more powerful than most people know > There is no 'to' in the > configuration file anywhere, and saying that "eth0" might be "a garbage" > isn't helpful in any way. This isn't any better than failing silently > or just printing "error". Each line of the route-eth* file(s) is passed ad-literam to ip route commands so all error messages that you see come from ip. Examine /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-routes for details. In your case, you should test the content of route-eth* by using: ip route add $EachLineOneByOne > I would like to make a bug report about this so that the useless error > message may be changed. But what package should the report refer to? You could file a RFE either against iproute which actually triggers the messages you've seen or against initscripts (ifup-routes is provided by it - you could ask for a better parser ).