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Date:      Wed, 02 Jul 2003 11:44:14 -0700
From:      Michael Sierchio <kudzu@tenebras.com>
To:        Barney Wolff <barney@databus.com>
Cc:        freebsd-net@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Performance improvement for NAT in IPFIREWALL
Message-ID:  <3F0327FE.3030609@tenebras.com>
In-Reply-To: <20030702183838.GB4179@pit.databus.com>
References:  <3F0316DE.3040301@tenebras.com> <20030702183838.GB4179@pit.databus.com>

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Barney Wolff wrote:

> NAT is not a security feature,

Many would disagree with that assertion.

> and should be used only where it is
> actually necessary to translate addresses, and as far towards the edge
> as possible. 

This is typically where firewalls are found.

> If you believe you need to NAT at even 1Gb, I'd look
> very hard at the requirements.

Sadly, requirements are often exogenous.

> The performance hit on crossing the kernel-userspace boundary for natd
> is inherent, apart from any code optimization that might be possible.

Right, it's the copying of data that creates the ultimate barrier.
Ruslan has suggested an analogue to divert that uses ng_ksocket.
That might be promising.

> But moving NAT into the kernel has great impact on kernel memory usage,
> which needs much more care than in user space.  NATs can be DoS'd,
> and running out of kernel memory can be fatal.

Stateful packet filters can be DoS'd.



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