Incomplete information: PAT ports 0-511, 512-1023, and 1024-65535

[rafaelvalcarcel]

Hi.

I am studying the first module of the fourth semester (CCNA v3.1)

"PAT (NAT overloading) divides the available ports per global IP address into three ranges of 0-511, 512-1023, and 1024-65535"

I have read the RFCs 1631, 3022, 2663.

I have looked for information in cisco.com and google.

I cant find information about this groups.

I dont understand the port group selection in the PAT process (router).

Can you help me?

Best regards and thanks you very much

[pkhatri]

Hi,

I'm not absolutely sure about why Cisco does the division between the first 2 ranges. However, it is clear why they have a separate range for ports 1024-65535. Port numbers less than 1024 are considered to be well-known ports e.g. port used for telnet is 23. Therefore, it makes sense to divide up the port ranges into well-known and the rest.

Hope that helps - pls do rate the post if it does.

Paresh

[rafaelvalcarcel]

Hi Paresh:

First of all thanks you for your altruist reply.

PAT in Cisco Routers, IOS:

"It will attempt to assign the same port value of the original request. However, if the original source port has already been used, ***it will start scanning from the beginning of the particular port range*** to find the first available port and assign it to the conversation."

The workstation always chooses a port over 1023 when it connects to a service.

In what case the IOS choose a port under 1024 in the PAT process (0-511, 512-1023) ?

It would be nice a debug nat output of a pat config router (¡not emu!) with workstations and servers in the lan side.

Thanks again and best regards