NAT Service | 4 |
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Network Address Translation (NAT) is sometimes referred to as IP masquerading, or IP aliasing. NAT is used to allow multiple computers access to the Internet with only one assigned IP address. NAT allows you to create a private network which accesses the Internet through a NAT router or gateway.
The NAT router takes all the traffic from your private network and remembers which internal address made the request. When the NAT router receives the response to the request, it forwards it to the originating computers. Traffic that originates from the Internet does not reach any of the computers behind the NAT router unless Port forwarding is enabled.
Enabling NAT on Mac OS X Server requires detailed control over DHCP, so DHCP is configured separately in Server Admin. To learn more about DHCP, see Chapter 1, “DHCP Service,” on page 7.
Enabling NAT also automatically creates a divert rule to the Firewall configuration.
Starting and Stopping NAT Service
You use Server Admin to start and stop NAT service on your default network interface. Starting NAT service also starts DHCP for the default interface.
To start NAT service:
1In Server Admin, select NAT from the Computers & Services pane.
2Click Start Service.
When the service is running, Stop Service becomes available.
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