I am attempting to add a network address to my NIC which is eth0 using route however receive the following error:
NET/ROM: this needs to be written

The command I'm issuing is:
route add --net 192.168.0.5 255.255.255.0 eth0

I did initially create a ifcfg-eth0 file within networking scripts. Would this be the problem. All I'm attempting to
is to amend what I wrote in the ifcfg-eth0 file using route -add.

Also when I run "route -n" i am able to see to default values namely one loopback IP address and one address which
has always been there since the installation. The IP address is 169.254.0.0 and it points to eth0. What is this?

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Networking and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

try this to see what happens

ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.5

the routing table should be updated correctly.