Order of Operations
This section describes the order of operations for both inside-to-outside and outside-to-inside translation.
Inside-to-Outside Translation
Inside-to-outside translation occurs in the following order:
- Inside (privately addressed) traffic enters the router on an interface marked as inside.
- A route lookup is performed.
- If the next interface is marked as outside, the router sends the traffic to the server module.
- The server module performs the appropriate translation.
- The router forwards the packet to the appropriate egress line module.
- The line module sends the packet as outbound traffic using a globally unique source address (inside source translation), destination address (outside source translation), and ports (NAPT).
Outside-to-Inside Translation
Outside-to-inside translation occurs in the following order:
- Traffic from the outside, public domain enters the router.
- All traffic from an interface that is marked outside, whether or not it requires NAT, is sent to the server module.
- The server module searches for an associated NAT match.
- If the server module:
- Finds a NAT match, and the destination interface is marked as inside, the server module performs the appropriate translation and sends the packet to the appropriate destination.
- Does not find a NAT match, and the destination interface is marked as inside, the server module drops the packet.
- Does not find a NAT match, and the destination interface is not marked as inside, the server module processes the packet normally for its destination.