In previous lessons I explained how to configure Dynamic NAT or Dynamic NAT with a DMZ on your Cisco ASA Firewall. In this lesson you will learn how to configure PAT. Here’s the topology I will use:
We have an INSIDE and OUTSIDE interface and we will use PAT to translate traffic from our hosts on the INSIDE that want to reach the OUTSIDE. R1 and R2 are only used to generate traffic. This is the basic ASA configuration that I will use:
ASA1(config)# interface e0/0
ASA1(config-if)# nameif INSIDE
ASA1(config-if)# ip address 192.168.1.254 255.255.255.0
ASA1(config-if)# no shutdown
ASA1(config)# interface e0/1
ASA1(config-if)# nameif OUTSIDE
ASA1(config-if)# ip address 192.168.2.254 255.255.255.0
ASA1(config-if)# no shutdown
Now let’s configure PAT…
PAT Configuration
Configuring PAT is quite straight forward, the example below is for ASA 8.3 or higher. We will configure a network object for this:
ASA1(config)# object network INSIDE
ASA1(config-network-object)# subnet 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0
ASA1(config-network-object)# nat (INSIDE,OUTSIDE) dynamic 192.168.2.253
This tells our firewall to translate traffic from the 192.168.1.0 /24 subnet headed towards the OUTSIDE to IP address 192.168.2.253. If you configure the IP address like this then it has to be an IP address that is not in use on the interface. For example, when I try to use 192.168.2.254 (that’s the IP address on the OUTSIDE interface) then I will get an error:
ASA1(config-network-object)# nat (INSIDE,OUTSIDE) dynamic 192.168.2.254
ERROR: Address 192.168.2.254 overlaps with OUTSIDE interface address.
ERROR: NAT Policy is not downloaded
Of course there’s another way to use the IP address on the OUTSIDE interface but I just wanted to show you what happens when you try to configure the IP address like this. Let’s first try if PAT works…I’ll generate some traffic from R1:
R1#telnet 192.168.2.2
Trying 192.168.2.2 ... Open
Let’s see if this traffic was translated or not:
ASA1# show xlate
1 in use, 3 most used
Flags: D - DNS, e - extended, I - identity, i - dynamic, r - portmap,
s - static, T - twice, N - net-to-net
TCP PAT from INSIDE:192.168.1.1/49065 to OUTSIDE:192.168.2.253/49065 flags ri idle 0:00:18 timeout 0:00:30
Excellent…it has been translated from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.2.253, just as we configured. Now let me show you how you can use the IP address on your OUTSIDE interface for PAT:
Hi Rene,
I dont know exactly what topic to place this question in thats why i am placing it here
i got an opportunity for 3 days to work under a CCIE who was very rude and did not bother to ask him any questions as i knew he was not interested in explaining
i was able to understand all bits till core SW through knowledge of your tutorials on VLAN and routing ,However cannot understand few bits in design at this point
They got a public IP block from ISP lets say 90.81.31.128/27 30 host count
Now the way the IP are assigned is as - 90.81.3.157 => ISP router LAN
... Continue reading in our forumHi Rene,
Can you please explain f
... Continue reading in our forumHello Ajith
The order of operation depends on if the NAT involved is source NAT or destination NAT. Specifically:
For ASA versions before AND after 8.3 with SOURCE NAT, the order of operation does NOT change. That is:
1 Routing, 2 Inbound ACL, 3 NAT
For ASA versions BEFORE 8.3 and DESTINATION NAT, the order of operation is as follows:
1 ACL 2 Destination NAT 3 Routing
For ASA versions AFTER 8.3 and DESTINATION NAT, the order of operation is as follows:
1 Destination NAT/Partial routing* 2 ACL
*Partial routing refers to the determination of the exit interface
... Continue reading in our forumthanks its clear now
Thanks Laz, I’ll give it a shot!