diff --git a/files/qemu-ifup-public b/files/qemu-ifup-public
index 8216ca7..8b1b7b4 100755
--- a/files/qemu-ifup-public
+++ b/files/qemu-ifup-public
@@ -9,7 +9,9 @@ fi
 
 source /etc/libvirt/hooks/$IFACE
 
-### I need to keep this for backwards compatibility but PUBLICMAC should always be set since it absolutely needs to match the MAC the VM has been assigned by qemu. otherwise nothign will work 
+### PUBLICMAC should always be set, keeping this for compatibility with libvirt.
+### the MAC the VM has been assigned by qemu needs to be known here, but AFAIK libvirt doesn't support exporting env vars to ifup script, so this needs to be static on the public interface in qemu
+### if this is not set correctly the routing in the VM won't work
 : ${PUBLICMAC:=52:54:00:00:00:11}
 ###
 
@@ -30,17 +32,20 @@ eui64() {
         printf "fe80::%02x%02x:%02xff:fe%02x:%02x%02x"
 }
 
+gwmac() {
+    ### libvirt replaces the first octet in the mac with fe, so may as well stick to that for consistency, 
+    ### the only thing that matters is that we know and it's predictable from within the VM
+    local macaddr="$1"
+    printf "%02x%s" "0xfe" "${macaddr:2}"
+}
 
-
-ip link set up ${IFACE}
-ip addr add fe80::1/64 dev ${IFACE}
-arp -i ${IFACE} -Ds 169.254.0.1 ${IFACE} netmask 255.255.255.255 pub 
-
+ip link set ${IFACE} address $(gwmac $PUBLICMAC) up
+arp -i ${IFACE} -s 169.254.0.1 ${PUBLICMAC}
 
 
 IFS=',' read -ra IPS <<< "$IP"
 for IP in "${IPS[@]}"; do
-   if [[ $IP =~ ^[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}/([0-9]{2})$ ]]; then			### we got a IPv4 prefix < maxprefixv4
+   if [[ $IP =~ ^[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}/([0-9]{2})$ ]]; then   ### we got a IPv4 prefix < maxprefixv4
         if [ ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} -lt $maxprefixv4 ]; then
           echo "we don't support such a big customer net?"
           continue
@@ -52,9 +57,10 @@ for IP in "${IPS[@]}"; do
         fi
 
         echo "we got IPv4 with prefix ${BASH_REMATCH[0]}"
-        ip route add ${IP} dev ${IFACE}
+        ip route add ${IP} via 169.254.0.1 dev ${IFACE} onlink metric 1
+        ip route add ${IP} dev ${IFACE} metric 255
 
-     elif [[ $IP =~ ^2604:bbc0:[0-9,a-f,:]{1,444}/([0-9]{2,3})$ ]]; then		### we got a PIv6 prefix < masprefixv6
+     elif [[ $IP =~ ^2604:bbc0:[0-9,a-f,:]{1,444}/([0-9]{2,3})$ ]]; then  ### we got a PIv6 prefix < masprefixv6
 
         if [ ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} -lt $maxprefixv6 ]; then
           echo "we don't support such a big customer net?"