Network Address Translation (NAT) enables private IP networks to connect to the Internet. NAT replaces a private IP address with a public IP address, translating the private addresses in the internal private network into legal, routable addresses that can be used on the public Internet. In this way, NAT conserves public addresses because it can be configured to advertise only one public address for the entire network to the outside world.
NAT can also provide the following benefits:
• Security: Keeping internal IP addresses hidden discourages direct attacks.
• IP routing solutions: Overlapping IP addresses are not a problem when you use NAT.
• Flexibility: You can change internal IP addressing schemes without affecting the public addresses available externally; for example, for a server accessible to the Internet, you can maintain a fixed IP address for Internet use, but internally, you can change the server address.
Refer to the following topics:
• Viewing NAT Translation Status
• Configuring Dynamic PAT Rules
• Configuring Static NAT Rules
• Configuring Port Forwarding Rules
• Configuring Port Triggering Rules
• Configuring Advanced NAT Rules
• Configuring IP Alias for Advanced NAT rules
• Configuring an Advanced NAT Rule to Support NAT Hairpinning
Note For detailed NAT configuration examples, see Firewall and NAT Rule Configuration Examples.