What is the difference between nat and proxy? what is the difference between proxy and vpn?

Question

VPN

A simple question painfully, but there is no clear explanation on the Internet. I only know that nat differs from a proxy in that it works at a lower level and does not support caching, and proxy from vpn? channel encryption only? in fact, they do the same thing, drive traffic through themselves?

Answer 1

Very clearly everything is written on Wikipedia.
Nat is just packet routing. This is part of the functionality of the TCP/IP protocol.
A proxy is a separate software that works with a specific protocol, such as http/https, and therefore parses these packages for more flexible configuration, logging, etc. In addition, the client program should be able to work through a proxy (you can, of course, make a transparent proxy on the router, but this is a separate topic), but accordingly, the proxy is only suitable for http/https.
VPN - virtual private network, you raise a virtual interface and connect to a remote resource, creating a virtual local area network on top of another connection. As a result, a virtual direct connection cable is thrown between your and the remote device, which looks like an encrypted channel from the outside, inside which something is transmitted.
Through vpn, you can connect to a remote proxy server, so all requests between your computer and the proxy server will be encrypted for an external observer.

Answer 2

A simple question painfully, but there is no clear explanation on the Internet. I only know that nat differs from a proxy in that it works at a lower level and does not support caching, and proxy from vpn? channel encryption only? in fact, they do the same thing, drive traffic through themselves?

Is different???
There is nothing in common between them.
NAT - address translation, packet forwarding.
Proxy - data transfer, with intermediate caching as a rule.
VPN is an alternative network, an encrypted channel within an open channel.

Answer 3

vpn is a tunnel with or without encryption. nat is a substitution of the address \ port, and proxy is a proxy) in fact, emulation of a connection from a gateway (unlike nat).
wiki and xgu.ru to help

Answer 4

It's like the difference between a car, a road, and a route. Yes, they all participate in traffic, but these are different concepts and they may not intersect with each other.

Answer 5

Nat - very roughly speaking - is your home wifi router.
VPN - makes all programs work through it. And if you need a second VPN, then you can only connect them in series.
A proxy is, for example, a tor, you install a vidalia, check the open port, and all the applications that you want to run through the tor, manually specify the proxy 127.0.0.1:9050 or 127.0.0.1:9150. But you can raise them as much as you like. Though for each application on the IP.
I understand, I explained extremely superficially "on the fingers"