Conceptual NAT

Objective

Describe NAT characteristics.

Scenario

You work for a large university or school system. Because you are the network administrator, many
professors, administrative workers, and other network administrators need your assistance with
their networks on a daily basis. They call you at all working hours of the day and, because of the
number of telephone calls, you cannot complete your regular network administration tasks.

You need to find a way to limit when you take calls and from whom.  You also need to mask your
telephone number so that when you call someone, another number is displayed to the recipient.

This scenario describes a very common problem for most small- to medium-sized businesses.  Visit,
“How Network Address Translation Works” located at
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/nat.htm/printable to view more information about how the digital
world handles these types of workday interruptions.

Use the PDF provided accompanying this activity to reflect further on how a process, known as NAT,
could be the answer to this scenario’s challenge.

Resources

Internet connection

Directions

Step 1:     Read Information on the Internet Site.

a.     Go to “How Network Address Translation Works” located at
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/nat.htm/printable

b.    Read the information provided to introduce the basic concepts of NAT.

c.     Record five facts you find to be interesting about the NAT process.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

Step 2:     View the NAT graphics.

a.     On the same Internet page, look at the types of NAT that are available for configuration on
most networks.

b.    Define the four NAT types:

1)     Static NAT

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

2)     Dynamic NAT

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

3)     NAT Overload

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

4)     NAT Overlap

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

Step 3:     Meet together in a full-class setting.

a.     Report your five NAT facts to the class.

b.    As other students state their interesting facts to the class, check off the stated fact if
you already recorded it.

c.     If a student reports a fact to the class that you did not record, add it to your list.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________