On Mon, 10 Sep 2001, Roeland Meyer wrote:
Mot so. What is needed to truely fix NAT is to propogate the translated addresses, both ways. This would give you an address product like <Inet addr>:<NAT addr>. The problem is that almost no stack, that I know of, can deal with such a form. The reason NAT works is that you only lose one side and the other side doesn't know that you've lost it.
Yea yea yes! Thats the ticket! Then we just make sure that NATed hosts have globally unique addresses so that the above idea doesn't break due to collisions and..... *WAIT A SECOND* At that point we've just recreated IP and the beautiful concept of putting the smarts in the HOST (the only place which must contain state) and not the Network (the place where state kills flexibility, reliability, and availability), except that your scheme would have the crack added bonus of profitable NAT translators! Why didn't we think of this years ago! -- The comments and opinions expressed herein are those of the author of this message and may not reflect the policies of the Martin County Board of County Commissioners.