Watchguard SOHO, User Manual

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User Guide 5.0 21
How does the SOHO process this information?
How does the SOHO process this information?
Services
A service is the combination of protocol(s) and port numbers
associated with a specific application or communication type. To
facilitate configuration of your SOHO, WatchGuard lets you select
pre-configured versions of several commonly used services.
Network Address Translation (NAT)
All incoming connections through a SOHO automatically use a
feature called dynamic network address translation (dynamic
NAT). Without dynamic NAT, your trusted, private addresses
would not be passed along the Internet to their destination.
Furthermore, the SOHO protects your trusted network by
disguising private IP addresses. During an Internet connection, all
traffic passed between computers includes their IP address
information. However, due to the dynamic NAT feature,
applications and servers on the Internet only see the public,
external IP address of the SOHO itself and are never privy to the
addresses in your trusted network address range when they
exchange information with a computer behind your firewall.
Imagine that you install a computer behind the SOHO with the
private IP address 192.168.111.12. If this address were broadcast to
the Internet, hackers could easily direct an attack on the computer
itself. Instead, the SOHO converts the address automatically to the
public, external address of the SOHO. When a hacker tries to
violate the computer, they are stopped cold at the SOHO, never
learning the true address of your computer.