NAT: network address translation

 

-motivation: local network uses just one IP address as far as outside world is concerned.

 

-implementation: 

NAT router must:

§ outgoing datagrams: replace (source IP address, port #) of every outgoing datagram to (NAT IP address, new port #). . . remote clients/servers will respond using (NAT IP address, new port #) as destination addr

§ remember (in NAT translation table) every (source IP address, port #) to (NAT IP address, new port #) translation pair

§ incoming datagrams: replace (NAT IP address, new port #) in dest fields of every incoming datagram with corresponding (source IP address, port #) stored in NAT table