NAT
NAT stands for Network Address Translation. It is used to share a single public IP between multiple client computers on the LAN, each using their own unique private class IP address.
When a client attempts to connect or send data to a machine on the Internet it forwards the data to the WinGate server(running NAT). The WinGate server then substitutes the original private IP in the packet sent from the client with its own (the external Public class IP address it uses for the Internet) and carries out the clients original request.
The remote Internet computer/server/site sends packets back to the WinGate
server, because they think that the WinGate server was the source of the data
sent. Since NAT keeps a record of which client computers sent packets on which
ports, it is able to pass the incoming packets back to the correct LAN computer
that initially made the request.
Click here to find out more about how NAT works
Click here to find out how to configure clients to use NAT
Pros
- NAT provides fast and seamless low-level sharing of a connection to the
internet.
It is the simplest approach to sharing an internet connection. With little overhead, it is very reliable. - It is also extremely flexible as it gives access to shared connection for any platform that supports TCP/IP (e.g. Windows, Mac, Unix, Linux) and virtually any client application (web browsers, mail programs, newsgroups, FTP etc.)
- There is no software to install and no applications to configure.
- Easy integration with proxies.
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