CompTIA Network+ N10-009 (V9) Practice Question

Port Address Translation (PAT) enables multiple devices on a local network to make outbound connections over the internet using the same public gateway address by tracking and mapping each session to a unique port number. This feature allows for the effective sharing of a single public IP address.

• Allocating unique gateway addresses to each workstation (incorrect) is not feasible as the scenario explicitly states the office is limited to a single external address.
• The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) (incorrect) is primarily involved with allocating IP addresses and network configuration parameters to clients on the internal network; it does not manage the translation of addresses for internet access.
• Standard Network Address Translation (NAT) (incorrect) refers to methods like static or dynamic NAT. Static NAT creates a one-to-one mapping. Dynamic NAT uses a pool of public IPs but still typically requires one public IP for each active internal device. Since there is only one available public address for multiple workstations, these forms of NAT are unsuitable. PAT is the specific type of NAT required for a many-to-one translation.