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Date:      28 Sep 2001 12:16:16 -0700
From:      swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen)
To:        Kutulu <kutulu@kutulu.org>
Cc:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: 127/8 continued
Message-ID:  <mzy9mzjfcv.9mz@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20010927140705.009ffc60@127.0.0.1>
References:  <200109271411.f8REBNH02164@c1828785-a.saltlk1.ut.home.com> <20010924094048.X5906-100000@coredump.scriptkiddie.org> <20010926134253.A65444@mushhaven.net> <i5vgi5tx0h.gi5@localhost.localdomain> <200109271411.f8REBNH02164@c1828785-a.saltlk1.ut.home.com> <5.1.0.14.0.20010927140705.009ffc60@127.0.0.1>

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Kutulu <kutulu@kutulu.org> writes:

> In order for the machines on your network to communicate with the
> outside world, they will either need public, routable IP addresses (all
> of them, not just your firewall), or you will need to run NAT somewhere.
> If your firewall has a private IP of 10.0.0.2, for example, even if it
> routes traffic correctly to the DSL router, once that packet hits the
> public internet there's no way to know how to get back to your 10.0.0.2.

Nobody should be TRYING to get back to 10.0.0.2; the packet src & dst
are all Internet addresses and the DSL and firewall routers should be
able to communicate privately.  The other end of my DSL connection looks
like a router with a public address that some other router uses as a
gateway for packets to my workstation or server.  As far as the world
should know or care, the DSL router and my firewall router are a single 
router.  No?

> > How does translating IP addresses help with security, as long
> >as the translation is transparent?
> 
> The benefit is not really security here.  The benefit is, you can have
> machines on the same logical subnet on different physical segments.

That's what I was thinking (on both counts), except I wonder why that
is "not really" instead of "not".

> This is actually what NAT was originally designed for.  It allowed
> people with a limited number of IP's (ie, one from their dial up
> provider) to handle traffic for multiple separate machines).  The
> security aspects are really just a nice side effect.

Again, what security aspects?

> The deficiency here is really in IP itself.  The IP protocol was built
> around the assumption that IP networks would be physically segmented in
> the same basic structure as they were logically segmented.  Each
> separate IP subnet is assumed to be a separate physical network segment,
> and thus, all machines on that IP subnet should be directly reachable
> through the attached interface.  And this is still the case the vast
> majority of the time.  For those times when it is not the case, there
> are static routing kludges, and NAT, to take case of it.

Assumptions that were reasonable when made, but are giving lots of
people grief now.  The work-arounds are awkward, partially broken,
complicated, or otherwise costly of SA time, IP address, etc.  Room 
for someone to innovate, but maybe it's better they work on IPv6.

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