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Re: IPv6<->IPv4 address translation is not NAT?
Brian E Carpenter wrote:
I think an important point of commonality is that when translating
between a smaller and a larger address space, you're forced to
deal with port mapping as well as with address translation.
not "forced", surely. "Might elct to" is close to the truth.
And the algorithmic embedding of A in B applies asymmetrically.
That is the same problem whether the smaller/larger pair
is single-IPv4/RFC1918 or IPv4/IPv6.
Maybe we should talk about address sharing rather than address
translation?
I don't agree.
What is going on appears to be the "type" of translation.
One approach preserves stateless capability in the network elements and
all that is a consequence avoids the use of placing translation sate i
the network elements, and "embeds" the translation into the packet so
that a remote entity (or the same entity at a later time) can reverse
the translation and recover the orginal intended context.
Another approach attempts to place state into network elements and then
all the packets within a context are treated in the same way. NAT
bindings are a good example of this state.
Analogy of the differences between approaches: Imagine that you are
flying home from Vancouver and you have no short term memory (it happens
:-)). What do you do when you get off the flight in Canberra and you
have absolutely no memory that you left your car at the Airport in Row
13? But you knew when you parked your car a week ago that you would
forget. Do you write down where you parked it and keep this mesage with
you through your trip so that its at hand upon your return (option a).
Or pin the message to the airport information board and hope that it
will still be there upon your return (option b).
The algorithmic embedding is one of these "packet-state" approaches
where any network element could undo the operation given that the packet
contains sufficient information to reverse the operation.
That's a long way of saying that I don't agree that embedding is
sharing! Embedding is another approach to translation :-)
Geoff