A device that is configured with NAT has at least one interface to the inside network and one to the outside network. In a typical environment, NAT is configured at the exit device between a stub domain and the backbone. When a packet exits the domain, NAT translates the locally significant source address into a globally unique address. When a packet enters the domain, NAT translates the globally unique destination address into a local address. If more than one exit point exists, each NAT must have the same translation table. If NAT cannot allocate an address because it has run out of addresses, it drops the packet. Then, NAT sends an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) host unreachable packet to the destination.

NAT can be used for the following applications:

• When you want to connect to the Internet, but not all of your hosts have globally unique IP addresses. NAT enables private IP internetworks that use nonregistered IP addresses to connect to the Internet. NAT is configured on the router at the border of a stub domain (referred to as the inside network ) and a public network such as the Internet (referred to as the outside network ). NAT translates internal local addresses to globally unique IP addresses before sending packets to the outside network. As a solution to the connectivity problem, NAT is practical only when relatively few hosts in a stub domain communicate outside of the domain at the same time. When this is the case, only a small subset of the IP addresses in the domain must be translated into globally unique IP addresses when outside communication is necessary, and these addresses can be reused when they are no longer in use.

• When you must change your internal addresses. Instead of changing the internal addresses, which can be a considerable amount of work, you can translate them by using NAT.

• When you want to do basic load sharing of TCP traffic. You can map a single global IP address to many local IP addresses by using the TCP load distribution feature.

The term inside in a Network Address Translation (NAT) context refers to networks owned by an organization that must be translated. When NAT is configured, hosts within this network have addresses in one space (known as the local address space). These hosts appear to those outside the network as being in another space (known as the global address space).

Similarly, the term outside refers to those networks to which the stub network connects, and which are not under the control of an organization. Also, hosts in outside networks can be subject to translation, and can thus have local and global addresses. NAT uses the following definitions:

• Inside local address—An IP address that is assigned to a host on the inside network. The address that the Network Information Center (NIC) or service provider assigns is probably not a legitimate IP address.

• Inside global address—A legitimate IP address (assigned by the NIC or service provider) that represents one or more inside local IP addresses to the outside world.

• Outside local address—The IP address of an outside host as it appears to the inside network. Not necessarily a legitimate address, it is allocated from the address space that is routable on the inside.

• Outside global address—The IP address that is assigned to a host on the outside network by the owner of the host. The address is allocated from a globally routable address or network space.

NAT supports the following VRFs:

This section describes the following topics:

• Inside Source Address Translation

• Overloading of Inside Global Addresses

Dynamic translation establishes a mapping between an inside local address and a pool of global addresses. Dynamic translation is useful when multiple users on a private network access the Internet. The dynamically configured pool IP address may be used as needed. It is released for use by other users when access to the Internet is no longer required.

Note

When inside global or outside local addresses belong to a directly connected subnet on a NAT router, the router adds IP aliases for them. This action enables answer Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) requests. However, a situation can arise where the router itself answers packets that are not destined for it, possibly causing a security issue. This security issue can happen when an incoming Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) or UDP packet that is destined for one of the aliased addresses does not have a corresponding NAT translation in the NAT table. The router itself runs a corresponding service, for example, the Network Time Protocol (NTP). Such a situation might cause minor security risks.