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Cisco Security Appliance Command Line Configuration Guide
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Chapter 14 Applying NAT
NAT Overview
After the connection expires, the port translation also expires after 30 seconds of inactivity. The timeout
is not configurable. Users on the destination network cannot reliably initiate a connection to a host that
uses PAT (even if the connection is allowed by an access list). Not only can you not predict the real or
mapped port number of the host, but the security appliance does not create a translation at all unless the
translated host is the initiator. See the following “Static NAT” or “Static PAT” sections for reliable access
to hosts.
PAT lets you use a single mapped address, thus conserving routable addresses. You can even use the
security appliance interface IP address as the PAT address. PAT does not work with some multimedia
applications that have a data stream that is different from the control path. See the “Application
Inspection Engines” section on page 21-1 for more information about NAT and PAT support.
Note For the duration of the translation, a remote host can initiate a connection to the translated host if an
access list allows it. Because the port address (both real and mapped) is unpredictable, a connection to
the host is unlikely. However in this case, you can rely on the security of the access list.
Static NAT
Static NAT creates a fixed translation of real address(es) to mapped address(es).With dynamic NAT and
PAT, each host uses a different address or port for each subsequent translation. Because the mapped
address is the same for each consecutive connection with static NAT, and a persistent translation rule
exists, static NAT allows hosts on the destination network to initiate traffic to a translated host (if there
is an access list that allows it).
The main difference between dynamic NAT and a range of addresses for static NAT is that static NAT
allows a remote host to initiate a connection to a translated host (if there is an access list that allows it),
while dynamic NAT does not. You also need an equal number of mapped addresses as real addresses with
static NAT.
Static PAT
Static PAT is the same as static NAT, except it lets you specify the protocol (TCP or UDP) and port for
the real and mapped addresses.
This feature lets you identify the same mapped address across many different static statements, so long
as the port is different for each statement (you cannot use the same mapped address for multiple static
NAT statements).
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