Have a computer which eth0 address is on a different
subnet than the router providing the default gw.

I know that I could use ipalias to get it on this
network as well, but of various reasons I don't want
to.

Lets say:
Physical network: 192.168.20.0/24
Default gw: 192.168.20.10
Address of RH 5.2 computer: 10.0.0.2

To rech the default gw I first have to add a route
to 192.168.20.0/24 on eth0.

Then I can set the default route to 192.168.20.10.
No problem.

The problem is that /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup
adds the default route before it adds other static
routes (calling ifup-post at the very end of the script).

Therefore, the default route cannot be added as it
don't know here the 192.168.20.0 network is.

The only reason for adding default route before other
static routes that I may think of is to be able to
reach a name server that is used to resolve gateway
addresses.

I would say that doing that is a bad habit and that
it is a bug to add the default route before local
static routes are added.

Terje Marthinussen
tm.id