external static routes to local interfaces

[Neal Cardwell <neal@xxxxxxxxx>]

If i have a Linux 2.2.x machine with a loopback interface bound to address
<A>, is it possible (for testing purposes) get the machine to send packets
bound for <A> over eth0 to a gateway with address <G>?

Under FreeBSD you can do this with:
  route add <A> <G>

But under Linux 2.2.12 when I tried:
  route add <A> gw <G> dev eth0
this gives a routing table that seems reasonable:

 Kernel IP routing table
 Dest      Gateway Genmask         Flags Metric Ref  Use Iface
 <A>       <G>     255.255.255.255 UGH   0      0    0   eth0

But despite this routing table, packets bound for <A> do *not* go to the
gateway, but rather through the loopback interface.

Is this a bug or a feature? How do i do this in Linux?

thanks,
neal