Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 07:07:13 +1030 From: Ian West <ian@apdata.com.au> To: Matthew Hagerty <matthew@venux.net> Cc: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Proxy, NATd, what's the dirrerence? Message-ID: <36F406F9.92476A04@apdata.com.au> References: <4.1.19990320133441.00a322e0@mail.venux.net>
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Matthew Hagerty wrote: > > Greetings, > > Sorry if this is a little off topic, but can someone explain to me the > difference between a proxy server and a NATd server? I am having a hard > time finding a clear explanation. > > Thank you, > Matthew > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-net" in the body of the message In real basic terms, a proxy reads data, and retransmits it on a seperate conenction, nat just rewrites the header info with the translated addresses, so it is possible to pass evil options through, even though the addresses are not visible from 'outside'. A proxy is generally (although not necessarily) an independant program dedicated to filtering the particular type of data it is applied to. This can be generalised a bit for tcp streams, but udp, icmp, and ftp need to be handled a bit more carefully. (ftp because of the data connection is independant of the control connection). Often proxys will do quite a lot more filtering as well, such as checking line lengths for smtp for example. (Or url's for http etc etc..) Hope this helps, Regards, Ian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-net" in the body of the message
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