NAT64/46: Translating IPv6 Addresses to IPv4

When traffic goes from an IPv6 network to an IPv4-only network, you need to convert the IPv6 address to IPv4, and return traffic from IPv4 to IPv6. You need to define two address pools, an IPv4 address pool to bind IPv6 addresses in the IPv4 network, and an IPv6 address pool to bind IPv4 addresses in the IPv6 network.

  • The IPv4 address pool for the NAT64 rule is normally small and typically might not have enough addresses to map one-to-one with the IPv6 client addresses. Dynamic PAT might more easily meet the possible large number of IPv6 client addresses compared to dynamic or static NAT.

  • The IPv6 address pool for the NAT46 rule can be equal to or larger than the number of IPv4 addresses to be mapped. This allows each IPv4 address to be mapped to a different IPv6 address. NAT46 supports static mappings only, so you cannot use dynamic PAT.

You need to define two policies, one for the source IPv6 network, and one for the destination IPv4 network. Although you can accomplish this with a single manual NAT rule, if the DNS server is on the external network, you probably need to rewrite the DNS response. Because you cannot enable DNS rewrite on a manual NAT rule when you specify a destination, creating two auto NAT rules is the better solution.