On 12/27/2010 09:15 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > Actually IIRC you have that the wrong way round. NAT was invented to > deal with address space exhaustion, and had the side-effect of hiding > machines behind the router. Before somebody steps in again to point out that NAT isn't a firewall, I'd like to give my perspective on it. If your router uses NAT and only forwards those ports you've told it to (and then, each port only goes to one machine) port scanners can't find your machines because nothing responds to their attempts to connect. And, of course, even if you have malware trying to act as some sort of server it won't do any good unless your machine initiates the connection. No, this isn't a firewall, but it's better than having your box sitting on the net completely exposed. Consider NAT as one layer of protection in a properly designed and implemented defense in depth. -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
