Network Address Translation
<networking> (NAT, or Network Address Translator, Virtual LAN) A
technique in which a router or firewall rewrites the source and/or destination
Internet addresses in a packet as it passes through, typically to allow multiple
hosts to connect to the Internet via a single external IP address. NAT keeps
track of outbound connections and distributes incoming packets to the correct
machine.
NAT is an alternative to adopting IPv6 (IPng). It allows the same IP addresses
(10.x.x.x is a common range) to be used on many private local networks while
requiring only one of the increasingly scarce public addresses to be allowcated
to each private network.
NAT does not however allow an external service to initiate a TCP connection to
an internal host, nor does it support stateless protocols based on UDP well
unless the router software has extensions to support each specific protocol.
(2005-09-18)
Nearby terms:
network « network address « Network Addressable Unit
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Network Address Translation » Network Address
Translator » Network Administrator » Network
Application Support
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