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VanLUG Email Archive

Re: ADSL and Linux router?

Ted Powell
Tue, 6 Oct 1998 20:08:45 -0700

On Tue, Oct 06, 1998 at 11:34:15AM -0700, Curt Sampson wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Ted Powell wrote:
>
> > Perhaps no-one previously perceived a need for a single word to refer to
> > this special case. Do other people refer to this case as "restricted
> > NAT", "one source address NAT", "NAT-1", or what?
>
> Nope. Everyone else uses NAT as a general term to cover all sorts
> of address translation. For example, the Ascend P50 does NAT for
> only one address, and yet they still call it NAT. They called it
> NAT before they implemented fixed pass-through translations for
> incoming connections, as well.

And the Fairchild F8 docs claim that it has a stack register.

What you're apparently saying is that in your experience people have
not felt a need for a special word to designate the limited form of NAT
that comes with common Linux distributions. You have now encountered,
in the Linux community, people who have for better or for worse adopted
a common English word for this purpose.

I gather from other traffic in this thread that NAT software with the
particular limitation that we've been discussing is not common in the
BSD community, so I don't find it particularly surprising, or worthy of
comment, that they don't have a special word for it.

> In other words, `NAT' is a term like `routing'; you don't find
> people saying `this device is a foo, not a router, because it
> doesn't handle ToS routing.'

But do you find people saying `this device is a bridge, not a router,
because it doesn't handle ...'?

> > If it has occurred elsewhere, then what word or
> > phrase is used to refer to it in a way that would not be confused with
> > fully-implemented NAT?
>
> `NAT that translates through only one address.' `Routing without
> ToS routing.'

10 syllables. 7 syllables. (YMMV)

Masquerading.

4 syllables.

Clearly an abomination to at least some people who know what NAT stands
for, but with a certain intuitive appeal to a net newbie.

I find it easier to explain to a lay person than full-blown NAT, and I
find it a convenient shorthand, just as I find "motorcycle" a convenient
shorthand for "motor vehicle with two wheels."

But I don't insist that people use the term, and I'm prepared to explain
it if I inadvertently use it in the presence of someone who doesn't
understand it.

-- 




  http://psg.com/~ted/  (Ted Powell)
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