[ILUG] Class C Addresses

[Colm Buckley]

On Wed 07 Nov 2001 16:32, Paul Jakma wrote:

> NAT is a hack... cute, but a hack.
> [...]
> NAT is a workaround for the IPv4 shortage.

Yes and no.  We see a lot of NATting being done purely to masquerade
internal networks, but it is also very valuable as a security measure;
consider the next-to-impossibility of hitting an individual machine
behind a NATting firewall.  Also, consider the case of a
load-balancing switch; typically these have a "real" IP on the front
end, and they forward packets via NAT to multiple servers on private
addresses.  This is much harder to do using "real" IP addresses across
the board.

NAT has its uses even in a larger address space.

            Colm

-- 
Colm Buckley : Systems Architect @ NewWorld Commerce
Business: +353 1 4334334  / colm at nwcgroup.com / http://www.nwcgroup.com/
Personal: +353 87 2469146 / colm at tuatha.org / http://www.tuatha.org/~colm/
I believe in the Certainty of Chance.