<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 8:43 AM, Aharon Schkolnik <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:aschkolnik@gmail.com">aschkolnik@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On Thursday 08 October 2009, shimi wrote:<br>
> The right way to do it is not with an Access Point. Someone needs to<br>
> "multiplex" your connection to multiple devices. Since you have just<br>
> one external IP address, someone needs to "share" it between your<br>
> multiple machines and do "magic" that makes it (multiple unicast<br>
> machines between one unicast address) work. We call that magic-maker a<br>
> "NAT router" (which basically every home router does).<br>
<br>
</div>Yeah, I realize that I need NAT (or PAT in Cisco terms), but I thought (I<br>
admit I didn't check) that the AP might do the NAT.<br>
<div class="im"><br></div></blockquote><div><br>A pure AP is a "wireless switch" - it talks Layer 2 only.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">
> So what you<br>
> need is an Ethernet router (with an Ethernet port on his WAN port).<br>
<br>
</div>Thing is, I was wondering why I need a router. I don't need it to do any<br>
routing decisions (unless I want to share files between connected PCs,<br>
which I don't). I do need NAT, but I kind of thought an AP would do that.<br>
<div class="im"><br></div></blockquote><div><br>NAT is performed at Layer 3 (some would even say Layer 4?). A layer 2 device does not understand (nor cares about) these layers at all. It can just forward frames...<br> </div>
<div class="h5"> -- Shimi<br></div></div></div>