Network Address Translation (NAT) |
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Network address translation (NAT) is a collective term for processes that replace address information within network packets - automatically and fully transparent. NAT is a key feature of a router or firewall. It hides the internal structure of a network and allows using only one public IP address for a whole network of computers. This is both an advantage in security and a necessity because of the shortage of IPv4 addresses.
There are two different kinds of NAT:
Special cases of NAT are:
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