Nice writeup on the different type of NATs. I learned something, thank you!
One feedback; I would use a different word ("wrangling"?) rather than "mangling" in your title. Or mention IPv6.
The title use of "mangling" alone triggered flashbacks of tracking down TCP checksum corruption in low cost home routers, or bugs in OpenBSD networking stacks back when I worked on web conferencing software. I that kind of mangling commiseration when clicking your link, but your use of the term was more for an article describing NATv4 and arguing "what IPv4 NAT does is hacky mangling, let's all use IPv6". And while making that argument (which is wistfully fair) also not really acknowledging the benefit of NAT for reducing the attack surface of inbound packets from unsolicited sources and/or explaining why that isn't relevant if you do proper firewalling with IPv6 instead. And when would IPv6 Npt (network /prefix/ translation be desired?)... But I can see that starts to go beyond the scope of your intended argument/perspective perhaps...
akerl_ · 6m ago
Mangle is the technical term used by the kernel for those parts of the process.
viveknathani_ · 6h ago
Wrote something about computer networking. Felt like posting it here. Happy to hear your thoughts, HN!
One feedback; I would use a different word ("wrangling"?) rather than "mangling" in your title. Or mention IPv6.
The title use of "mangling" alone triggered flashbacks of tracking down TCP checksum corruption in low cost home routers, or bugs in OpenBSD networking stacks back when I worked on web conferencing software. I that kind of mangling commiseration when clicking your link, but your use of the term was more for an article describing NATv4 and arguing "what IPv4 NAT does is hacky mangling, let's all use IPv6". And while making that argument (which is wistfully fair) also not really acknowledging the benefit of NAT for reducing the attack surface of inbound packets from unsolicited sources and/or explaining why that isn't relevant if you do proper firewalling with IPv6 instead. And when would IPv6 Npt (network /prefix/ translation be desired?)... But I can see that starts to go beyond the scope of your intended argument/perspective perhaps...