On Thu, Jun 18, 2026 at 11:26 AM <sronan@ronan-online.com> wrote:
Can we agree NAT is NOT a Firewall first?
1:Many NAT (sometimes called PAT) uses a stateful packet inspection firewall as an inherent part of its technology core. It can't exist without that firewall technology. While 1:1 NAT does exist and does not require any firewall technology, it sees so little use that the module for stateless 1:1 IPv4 NAT was dropped from the Linux kernel more than a decade ago. So no, we can't agree to a statement that's objectively false. Kinda sad that the kernel devs dropped it actually. I had a great use for 1:1 NAT to work around an AWS limitation in 2017 but ended up having to use Linux's stateful NAT instead. Regards, Bill Herrin -- For hire. https://bill.herrin.us/resume/