Various example embodiments for supporting source routing are presented herein. Various example embodiments for supporting source routing may be configured to support source route compression for source routing. Various example for supporting source route compression for source routing may be configured to support source route compression for source routing based on use of shadow addresses. Various example for supporting source route compression for source routing based on use of shadow addresses may be configured to support source routing of packets based on use of shadow addresses of hops in place of actual addresses of hops to encode source routes within source routed packets, thereby compressing the source routes within the source routed packets and, thus, providing source route compression.