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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Which communication protocol or open standard in software do you wish was more common or used more? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Whether you're really passionate about RPC, MQTT, Matrix or wayland, tell us more about the protocols or open standards you have strong opinions on!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

You're thinking of a firewall. NAT is just the thing that makes a connection appear to come from...

That connection only "appears to come from" if I explicitly put a rule in my NAT table directing it to my computer behind the router doing the NAT-ing.

Otherwise all connections through NAT are started from internal->external network requests and the state table in NAT keeps track of which internal IP is talking to which external IP and directs traffic as necessary.

So OP is correct, it does apply a measure of security. Port scanning someone behind NAT isn't possible, you just end up port scanning their crappy NAT router provided by their ISP unless they have specifically opened up some ports and directed them to their internal IP address.

Compare this to IPV6 where you get a slice of the public address space to place your devices in and they are all directly addressable. In that case your crappy ISP router also is a "proper" firewall. Strangely enough it usually is a "stateful" firewall with default deny-all rules that tracks network connections and looks and performs almost exactly like the NAT version, just without address translation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

So OP is correct, it does apply a measure of security. Port scanning someone behind NAT isn't possible, you just end up port scanning their crappy NAT router provided by their ISP unless they have specifically opened up some ports and directed them to their internal IP address.

You end up just port scanning their crappy router on IPv6 as well because ports that are not opened are stuck at the firewall either way, no matter if you use IPv4 or IPv6.

Just because every device gets a public IP does not mean that IP is publicly accessible.

An advantage that IPv6 has against port scanning is the absurdly large network sizes. For example, my ISP gives me a /56 prefix, that is 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 IPv6 addresses. Good luck finding the used ones with the port open you need.

Even with just a /64 prefix you get 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 addresses, way outside the feasibility of port scanning.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Compare this to IPV6 where you get a slice of the public address space to place your devices in and they are all directly addressable. In that case your crappy ISP router also is a “proper” firewall. Strangely enough it usually is a “stateful” firewall with default deny-all rules that tracks network connections and looks and performs almost exactly like the NAT version, just without address translation.

realistically, it wouldnt surprise me if ISPs started NATing on residential IPV6 networks, just for the simplicity, but still allowed end users to assign their own IPs if they so pleased. Given the surge in shitty IOT devices, that's probably a good thing for most people. Though a firewall would also accomplish this as well.