Hole punching through Vmware NAT

[darkline]

I am really not sure where to put this so if i'm in the wrong area please redirect me.

Anyway what i am doing iis using VMware to test out a few programs, which use holepunching techniques to get throught NAT, so what i want to know is to what extent does the VMware NAT support hole punching. Particularly with TCP - does it check the ACK numbers etc?

For any info given thanks, if i posted this in the wrong place sorry.

Hen

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Which VMware product are you using?

[mike_laspina · Accepted solution]

NAT does not deal with SYN ACK FIN in only deals with MACs, IP's and some times ports. There should not be any interaction with the session state info.

[darkline]

Sorry i dont understand your last sentance - i am a real novice at this stuff.

If the NAT only deals with the MAC's IP's and ports all i need to do for hole punching with tcp would be ::-

1. Virtual Os sends to outside computer (1.1.1.1:1111) opening up a port

2. 1.1.1.1:1111 connects to the computer with VMware on (2.2.2.2) and the VMware nat forwards it - connection established

if thats it then all is good

thanks

[darkline]

Sorry i dont understand your last sentance - i am a real novice at this stuff.

If the NAT only deals with the MAC's IP's and ports all i need to do for hole punching with tcp would be ::-

1. Virtual Os sends to outside computer (1.1.1.1:1111) opening up a port

2. 1.1.1.1:1111 connects to the computer with VMware on (2.2.2.2) and the VMware nat forwards it - connection established

if thats it then all is good

thanks

[mcowger]

What you have described is basic NAT functionality, and yes, Server/Workstation do this.

--Matt

[mike_laspina]

Yes thats is pretty much it. NAT maintains a table of what MAC belongs to what IP to figure out where to send it. Sometimes a port method is also employed along with it but that's not common.

e.g. VM 00-C1-E3-00-55-11:192.168.0.1:Port 80 = Host 00-33-D4-43-7F-12:145.230.1.22:Port 80

[mcowger]

While NIT picky, I would add that NAT has nothing to do with MAC addresses or layer 2 - its a purely layer 3 protocol. ARP and ARP tables is responsible for IP->MAC mappings.

--Matt

[darkline]

Thanks very much everyone,