{"id":91667,"date":"2025-12-11T15:13:37","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T15:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/proxidize.com\/?post_type=blog&p=91667"},"modified":"2026-01-13T17:14:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T17:14:37","slug":"what-is-nat","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/proxidize.com\/blog\/what-is-nat\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Network Address Translation (NAT)?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you know anything about the internet, you might know that when it first started, all IP addresses were under IPv4 and were limited to about 4.3 billion addresses<\/strong>. Since then, there have been far too many devices to accommodate the limit. As such, NAT was introduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NAT stands for Network Address Translation and is a way to allow multiple devices to operate under one IP. This article aims to explain what it is, the different types of NAT, and how it works. Hopefully by the end of this article, you will have a solid understanding of these concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is NAT?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Network Address Translation or NAT<\/strong> for short is a networking technique that allows multiple devices in a private network to access external networks using a single <\/strong>IP address<\/strong><\/a>. It translates public and private IP addresses<\/a>. It conserves the limited pool of IPv4 addresses and adds a layer of opacity by masking internal addresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned in the introduction, there are only 4.3 billion IPv4 addresses<\/a> which might seem like a lot, but there are roughly 6.04 billion internet users<\/strong><\/a>. It helps to prevent IP exhaustion by enabling thousands of private devices to share a limited number of public IP addresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NAT is commonly used by internet service providers (ISPs) and organizations to allow multiple devices on a network to share one public IP address. By doing so, devices on a private network can communicate with devices on a public network without needing each device to have its own public IP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How Does NAT Work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When a device in a private network wants to communicate with the internet, the request will go to the NAT-enabled router<\/strong>. The router will replace the private IP with its public IP and assign a unique port number<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By ensuring that multiple devices can share a single public IP, internal addresses can remain hidden from external networks<\/strong>, and port numbers can help differentiate traffic from different devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It rewrites port numbers only when needed to avoid collisions<\/strong>, here is how that works:<\/p>\n\n\n\n