I was under the impression that, once connected to a VPN server, all outbound traffic from my computer is routed through that VPN server. I'm not a network engineer so I never really thought about it much until now.
Now, I'm connected to my company's VPN and have the following routing table:
Internet:
Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire
default 192.168.1.1 UGSc 80 0 en0
10.8.0.1/32 10.8.0.17 UGSc 0 0 utun3
10.8.0.17 10.8.0.18 UH 8 0 utun3
10.11/24 10.8.0.17 UGSc 2 0 utun3
24.222.7.19/32 10.8.0.17 UGSc 0 0 utun3
24.222.7.21/32 10.8.0.17 UGSc 0 0 utun3
24.222.7.66/32 10.8.0.17 UGSc 0 0 utun3
99.79.0.44/32 10.8.0.17 UGSc 0 0 utun3
127 127.0.0.1 UCS 0 81 lo0
127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 UH 9 2597308 lo0
169.254 link#5 UCS 0 0 en0
192.168.1 link#5 UCS 3 0 en0
192.168.1.1/32 link#5 UCS 1 0 en0
192.168.1.1 d8:a7:56:1a:d8:c1 UHLWIir 23 1710 en0 1188
192.168.1.109 link#5 UHRLWI 0 21 en0 1
192.168.1.131 4c:7c:5f:54:20:20 UHLWI 0 2 en0 1031
192.168.1.144 c0:f2:fb:a9:19:95 UHLWI 0 0 en0 402
192.168.1.147/32 link#5 UCS 1 0 en0
192.168.1.147 8c:85:90:1c:78:cd UHLWI 0 20 lo0
192.168.99 link#11 UC 1 0 vboxnet
224.0.0/4 link#5 UmCS 2 0 en0
224.0.0.251 1:0:5e:0:0:fb UHmLWI 0 0 en0
239.255.255.250 1:0:5e:7f:ff:fa UHmLWI 0 278 en0
255.255.255.255/32 link#5 UCS 0 0 en0
My understanding is that the gateway chosen depends on the "Destination" address that I am making a request to. Suppose I was making a request heading towards a network that did not match any routes (203.0.113.3/24, for example). In that case, doesn't this request just go to the default gateway, bypassing any address on the VPN and going straight out to the internet?
Am I understanding things correctly or is there still a piece I'm missing?