NAT: Host a Server, Extend the Internet
** One correction to make: ** The total available IPv4 address space (public and private) is technically infinite with NAT, not just limited to 2^32^2^32 given that we can have NAT within a NAT within a NAT… etc. This is not even uncommon, many people run virtual machines NAT’d within their computers, for example.
Regardless, in this video, we discuss how network engineers used NAT to extended the internet back when we started running out of IPv4 addresses. There is also a discussion of the security principles. Once we finish talking about how you make web requests and get responses with NAT in place, we implement port forwarding in the port forwarding/port triggering page of my router to show the effect of TCP hole punching on a network. This demonstration shows a failed public to private connection and then how port forwarding resolves that.
I hope this helps someone run a game server or application server if they’re having trouble. The principles are good, but one of the reasons I made this video is that I struggled to run my Minecraft servers back in the day due to NAT troubles and I think it’s something that could certainly be taught better.
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Content
00:00 Introduction
01:45 Network Overview
06:34 Demonstration
09:41 Port Forwarding
12:22 Troubleshooting
ipv4
