There are not enough public IPv4 addresses to assign a unique address to each device connected to the Internet. Networks are commonly implemented using private IPv4 addresses, as defined in RFC 1918. Figure 1 shows the range of addresses included in RFC 1918. It is very likely that the computer that you use to view this course is assigned a private address.
These private addresses are used within an organization or site to allow devices to communicate locally. However, because these addresses do not identify any single company or organization, private IPv4 addresses cannot be routed over the Internet. To allow a device with a private IPv4 address to access devices and resources outside of the local network, the private address must first be translated to a public address.
As shown in Figure 2, NAT provides the translation of private addresses to public addresses. This allows a device with a private IPv4 address to access resources outside of their private network, such as those found on the Internet. NAT combined with private IPv4 addresses, has proven to be a useful method of preserving public IPv4 addresses. A single, public IPv4 address can be shared by hundreds, even thousands of devices, each configured with a unique private IPv4 address.
Without NAT, the exhaustion of the IPv4 address space would have occurred well before the year 2000. However, NAT has certain limitations, which will be explored later in this chapter. The solution to the exhaustion of IPv4 address space and the limitations of NAT is the eventual transition to IPv6.