Single Ip Address Operation Using Nat - NETGEAR RP614 - Web Safe Router Reference Manual

Reference Manual for the Model RP614 v2 Web Safe Router
NETGEAR recommends that you choose your private network number from this range. The
DHCP server of the RP614 v2 router is preconfigured to automatically assign private addresses.
Regardless of your particular situation, do not create an arbitrary IP address; always follow the
guidelines explained here. For more information about address assignment, refer to RFC 1597,
Address Allocation for Private Internets, and RFC 1466, Guidelines for Management of IP
Address Space. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) publishes RFCs on its Web site at
www.ietf.org.

Single IP Address Operation Using NAT

In the past, if multiple PCs on a LAN needed to access the Internet simultaneously, you had to
obtain a range of IP addresses from the ISP. This type of Internet account is more costly than a
single-address account typically used by a single user with a modem, rather than a router. The
RP614 v2 router employs an address-sharing method called Network Address Translation (NAT).
This method allows several networked PCs to share an Internet account using only a single IP
address, which may be statically or dynamically assigned by your ISP.
The router accomplishes this address sharing by translating the internal LAN IP addresses to a
single address that is globally unique on the Internet. The internal LAN IP addresses can be either
private addresses or registered addresses. For more information about IP address translation, refer
to RFC 1631, The IP Network Address Translator (NAT).
The following figure illustrates a single IP address operation.
B-8 Networks, Routing, and Firewall Basics