Network Address Translation (NAT)

Objectives:

Network Address Translation (NAT) Static NAT Dynamic NAT Port Address Translation (PAT)

Network Address Translation

Network Address Translation is the translation of public IP address to private IP address or private IP address to public IP address while using the Internet over the Web Server. Characteristics:

Operate at Network Layer of OSI model Overcome the problem of lack of public IP addresses Provide security from hackers by hiding addresses Transparent to the source and destination computers

NAT Implementation

NAT is implemented using two techniques:

Static Address Translation Dynamic Address Translation

Static NAT

It allows you to establish a one-to-one mapping between local and global addresses. Static NAT requires same number of public IP addresses as that of private IP addresses, that's why it is called as one to one mapping. In this technique more number of public IP addresses are required.

Dynamic NAT

It allows you to establish dynamic mapping between local and global addesses. In dynamic mapping, it creates a group of public IP addresses which are to be assigned to private IP addresses. The number of public IP addresses is limited, which is advantage over the Static NAT.

Port Address Translation (PAT)

The Port Address Translation (PAT) is used to translate internal addresses to only one or a few external addresses. In a PAT implemented network, the router assigns same IP address to all the devices, but uses different port numbers The total number of port numbers can theoretically be as high as 65,536 per IP address. It is the most useful technique over the above two as it uses only one public IP address.