This read-only INTEGER identifies how a neighbor table entry was learned, such as self, rtpRedirect, rtpUpdate, manualRoute, igrp, test, or manualNeighbor. An admin checks this to distinguish neighbors learned dynamically through VINES routing protocols from those configured manually, which matters when auditing static configuration. An entry reporting manualNeighbor(8) tells the admin that specific neighbor relationship was hand-configured rather than discovered automatically.