NAT – Network Address Translation

Definition: NAT allows an Internet Protocol (IP) network to maintain public IP addresses separately from private IP addresses. NAT is a popular technology for Internet connection sharing. It is also sometimes used in server load balancing applications on corporate networks.

In it’s most common configuration, NAT maps all of the private IP addresses on a home network to the single IP address supplied by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). This allows computers on the home LAN to share a single Internet connection. NAT works by snooping both incoming and outgoing IP datagrams.