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Glossary Networking

NAT

NAT (Network Address Translation) lets many devices with private IP addresses share one public IP address by rewriting addresses and ports as traffic passes through a router.

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In more detail

The router remembers which internal device opened each connection and sends replies back to it. NAT slowed the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses and incidentally blocks unsolicited inbound connections, but it is not a security feature in itself. IPv6 has enough addresses to make it unnecessary.

See also

  • Glossary Router
    A router is a device that forwards data packets between different networks, choosing the path for each one.
  • Glossary IP address
    An IP address is the number that identifies a device on a network so that data can be sent to it.
  • Glossary IPv6
    IPv6 is the newer version of the Internet Protocol, using 128-bit addresses to replace the nearly exhausted 32-bit IPv4 space.
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