Network Address Translation (NAT) is a crucial technology used in computer networks, especially within homes and businesses. It primarily serves two main purposes:
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Conserving IP Addresses: NAT allows multiple devices in a local network to share a single public IP address for accessing the internet. This is essential due to the limited availability of IPv4 addresses. It conserves these valuable public IP addresses by using a single address for several devices.
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Enhancing Security: NAT acts as a protective barrier between the local network and the internet. When devices in the local network communicate with the internet, NAT modifies the source IP address in the outgoing data packets to the public IP address. This means external entities on the internet see only the public IP address and not the individual local IP addresses of devices. In effect, it hides the structure of the internal network from potential threats.
NAT works by maintaining a translation table, which keeps track of which internal device corresponds to which external port number. When incoming data packets return from the internet to the NAT router, it uses this table to correctly route the data to the appropriate internal device.
