Netgear FVL328 FVL328 Reference Manual - Page 144

Model FVL328 ProSafe High-Speed VPN Firewall Reference Manual Revision 2 Private IP addresses assigned by user 192.168.0.2 IP addresses assigned by ISP 192.168.0.3 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.1 172.21.15.105 Internet 192.168.0.5 Figure 8-3: Single IP Address Operation Using NAT This scheme offers the additional benefit of firewall-like protection because the internal LAN addresses are not available to the Internet through the translated connection. All incoming inquiries are filtered out by the router. This filtering can prevent intruders from probing your system. However, using port forwarding, you can allow one PC (for example, a Web server) on your local network to be accessible to outside users. MAC Addresses and Address Resolution Protocol An IP address alone cannot be used to deliver data from one LAN device to another. To send data between LAN devices, you must convert the IP address of the destination device to its media access control (MAC) address. Each device on an Ethernet network has a unique MAC address, which is a 48-bit number assigned to each device by the manufacturer. The technique that associates the IP address with a MAC address is known as address resolution. Internet Protocol uses the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to resolve MAC addresses. If a device sends data to another station on the network and the destination MAC address is not yet recorded, ARP is used. An ARP request is broadcast onto the network. All stations on the network receive and read the request. The destination IP address for the chosen station is included as part of the message so that only the station with this IP address responds to the ARP request. All other stations discard the request. B-8 Networks, Routing, and Firewall Basics May 2004, 202-10030-02