Glossary

NAT Support is a concept in network technology that refers to the ability of network devices to perform Network Address Translation (NAT).

NAT is a technique used to translate network addresses to facilitate data traffic between different networks. Typically, when a device on a private network wants to connect to the Internet, it must have a public IP address to communicate directly with the Internet. However, since most private networks only have a limited number of public IP addresses available, private IP addresses such as 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x are used to identify devices on the network.

This leads however, it becomes a problem when devices on a private network want to communicate with the Internet. The network's public IP address must be translated so that devices on the private network can access the Internet. That is the task of the NAT. The NAT device translates the device's private IP address into a public IP address that can be used by the Internet, and then forwards the traffic.

NAT support therefore refers to the ability of network devices to perform NAT. Many network devices such as routers and firewalls offer NAT support as a standard feature. There are also special NAT devices designed exclusively for NAT translation.

An important aspect of NAT support is the type of NAT that the device supports. There are different types of NAT, including static NAT, dynamic NAT, and port address translation (PAT). Static NAT always translates a private IP address to the same public IP address, while dynamic NAT uses a pool of public IP addresses to translate the private IP address. PAT is a special type of NAT that uses a single public IP address for multiple private IP addresses by changing the source port number of each device.

NAT support is essential for many networks to ensure a connection to the Internet and to enable data traffic between private and public networks. Without NAT, limiting the number of available public IP addresses would severely limit communication between devices on private networks and the Internet.