North American Network Operators Group
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Re: IPv6 NAT

  • From: Eliot Lear
  • Date: Fri Oct 31 12:10:45 2003 
Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:


NAT is harmful to many protocols.  Stateful
inspection is not.

Possibly. But Joe User will never use those "many protocols". Plus the overwhelming majority of protocols are not harmed by NAT.
Of course NAT causes all sorts of damage to all sorts of protocols, as the debate over VPN software demonstrated, nevermind voice applications and peer to peer networking. It also has substantial implications for mobility. This has all been well documented, as have workarounds. Having yet another argument about this on nanog is a waste of bits (to which I freely admit I'm contributing). Let me suggest we not bother with the rest of the argument, but just have people search the archives.

Eliot