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I'm studying the NAT-process and I've a doubt about addressing. When the NAT translates the private IP address to a public IP address, it can translate, if properly configurated, different private IP to the same public IP . How is it possible that two hosts use the same public IP? I mean, if I ping that IP, would I get a response from both of them?

Shark44
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1 Answers1

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There are variants of NAT, and you are referring to NAPT (Network Address Port Translation) as described in RFC 2663, IP Network Address Translator (NAT) Terminology and Considerations:

4.1.2. Network Address Port Translation (NAPT)

NAPT extends the notion of translation one step further by also translating transport identifier (e.g., TCP and UDP port numbers, ICMP query identifiers). This allows the transport identifiers of a number of private hosts to be multiplexed into the transport identifiers of a single external address. NAPT allows a set of hosts to share a single external address. Note that NAPT can be combined with Basic NAT so that a pool of external addresses are used in conjunction with port translation.

For packets outbound from the private network, NAPT would translate the source IP address, source transport identifier and related fields such as IP, TCP, UDP and ICMP header checksums. Transport identifier can be one of TCP/UDP port or ICMP query ID. For inbound packets, the destination IP address, destination transport identifier and the IP and transport header checksums are translated.

Basically, both the IPv4 and transport protocol addresses (TCP/UDP ports or ICMP Query ID) are translated, not just the IPv4 address. That means that you translate to a single IPv4 address, but the various transport addresses also, so it is not dependent on just the IPv4 address. This creates a limitation that means you can only use NAPT with TCP, UDP, and ICMP. Other existing or future transport protocols are broken by NAPT, as are some applications or application-layer protocols that use TCP or UDP.

This is further explained in RFC 3022, Traditional IP Network Address Translator (Traditional NAT):

2.2. Overview of NAPT

Say, an organization has a private IP network and a WAN link to a service provider. The private network's stub router is assigned a globally valid address on the WAN link and the remaining nodes in the organization have IP addresses that have only local significance. In such a case, nodes on the private network could be allowed simultaneous access to the external network, using the single registered IP address with the aid of NAPT. NAPT would allow mapping of tuples of the type (local IP addresses, local TU port number) to tuples of the type (registered IP address, assigned TU port number).

This model fits the requirements of most Small Office Home Office (SOHO) groups to access external network using a single service provider assigned IP address. This model could be extended to allow inbound access by statically mapping a local node per each service TU port of the registered IP address.

In the example of figure 3 below, stub A internally uses class A address block 10.0.0.0/8. The stub router's WAN interface is assigned an IP address 138.76.28.4 by the service provider.

                                 \ | /
                               +-----------------------+
                               |Service Provider Router|
                               +-----------------------+
                             WAN |
                                 |
             Stub A .............|....
                                 |
     ^{s=138.76.28.4,sport=1024, |  v{s=138.76.29.7, sport = 23,
     ^ d=138.76.29.7,dport=23}   |  v d=138.76.28.4, dport = 1024}
                     +------------------+
                     |Stub Router w/NAPT|
                     +------------------+
                       |
                       |  LAN
 --------------------------------------------
    |        ^{s=10.0.0.10,sport=3017, |  v{s=138.76.29.7, sport=23,
    |        ^ d=138.76.29.7,dport=23} |  v d=10.0.0.10, dport=3017}
    |                                  |
   +--+      +--+                    +--+
   |--|      |--|                    |--|
  /____\    /____\                  /____\
 10.0.0.1  10.0.0.2   .....        10.0.0.10

Figure 3: Network Address Port Translation (NAPT) Operation

When stub A host 10.0.0.10 sends a telnet packet to host 138.76.29.7, it uses the globally unique address 138.76.29.7 as destination, and sends the packet to it's primary router. The stub router has a static route for the subnet 138.76.0.0/16 so the packet is forwarded to the WAN-link. However, NAPT translates the tuple of source address 10.0.0.10 and source TCP port 3017 in the IP and TCP headers into the globally unique 138.76.28.4 and a uniquely assigned TCP port, say 1024, before the packet is forwarded. Packets on the return path go through similar address and TCP port translations for the target IP address and target TCP port. Once again, notice that this requires no changes to hosts or routers. The translation is completely transparent.

In this setup, only TCP/UDP sessions are allowed and must originate from the local network. However, there are services such as DNS that demand inbound access. There may be other services for which an organization wishes to allow inbound session access. It is possible to statically configure a well known TU port service [RFC 1700] on the stub router to be directed to a specific node in the private network.

In addition to TCP/UDP sessions, ICMP messages, with the exception of REDIRECT message type may also be monitored by NAPT router. ICMP query type packets are translated similar to that of TCP/UDP packets, in that the identifier field in ICMP message header will be uniquely mapped to a query identifier of the registered IP address. The identifier field in ICMP query messages is set by Query sender and returned unchanged in response message from the Query responder. So, the tuple of (Local IP address, local ICMP query identifier) is mapped to a tuple of (registered IP address, assigned ICMP query Identifier) by the NAPT router to uniquely identify ICMP queries of all types from any of the local hosts. Modifications to ICMP error messages are discussed in a later section, as that involves modifications to ICMP payload as well as the IP and ICMP headers.

In NAPT setup, where the registered IP address is the same as the IP address of the stub router WAN interface, the router has to be sure to make distinction between TCP, UDP or ICMP query sessions originated from itself versus those originated from the nodes on local network. All inbound sessions (including TCP, UDP and ICMP query sessions) are assumed to be directed to the NAT router as the end node, unless the target service port is statically mapped to a different node in the local network.

Sessions other than TCP, UDP and ICMP query type are simply not permitted from local nodes, serviced by a NAPT router.

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