Bug#575444: net-tools: Typo when setting default gateway with 'route' results in extraneous routes being added

[Eric Urban]

Package: net-tools
Version: 1.60-22
Severity: normal


I was checking my default route in a Debian virtual machine and it was set wrong. I went to change it. Here is my terminal session

ericu at wtorrent-debian:~$sudo route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.12.0    0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
0.0.0.0         192.168.12.71   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth1
ericu at wtorrent-debian:~$ sudo route del default
ericu at wtorrent-debian:~$ sudo route add defaul gw 192.168.12.70
ericu at wtorrent-debian:~$ sudo route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
208.68.139.38   192.168.12.70   255.255.255.255 UGH   0      0        0 eth1
192.168.12.0    0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
ericu at wtorrent-debian:~$ route --version
-bash: route: command not found
ericu at wtorrent-debian:~$ /sbin/route --version
net-tools 1.60
route 1.98 (2001-04-15)
+NEW_ADDRT +RTF_IRTT +RTF_REJECT +I18N
AF: (inet) +UNIX +INET +INET6 +IPX +AX25 +NETROM +X25 +ATALK +ECONET +ROSE 
HW:  +ETHER +ARC +SLIP +PPP +TUNNEL +TR +AX25 +NETROM +X25 +FR +ROSE +ASH +SIT +FDDI +HIPPI +HDLC/LAPB +EUI64 
ericu at wtorrent-debian:~$ 


As you can see the command containing the typo 'route add defaul gw 192.168.12.70' adds an unintended route 208.68.139.38. This is very strange 
behavior and I believe it to be unintended. This probably will not result in any major problems for most people, but could cause a severe headache 
for a systems administrator who is attempting to track down routing problems and makes one unfortunate typo.

Eric Urban

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0.4
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages net-tools depends on:
ii  libc6                       2.7-18lenny2 GNU C Library: Shared libraries

net-tools recommends no packages.

net-tools suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information