Hello, I''m prepping for the CCNA (Cisco certified network associate) exam and decided the best thing to-do was purchase a 2500 series router and get some hands on.. I figured with the right IOS I would get some practical experience by replacing my Shorewall routing/firewall with a Cisco 2514. Well I must say.. Shorewall is definitely a treat to setup and easily configurable compared to a Cisco router (in more ways than I an even mention) Heh.. Heh.. :D To make a long story short... Did Cisco originally come up with all the different NAT naming schemes or Unix? Or did someone else and both Cisco and *nix decided to make up there own names unique to each other.. I found setting up a Cisco to do what I considered "dynamic Nat" of outbound connections.. "many to one" masq''ing... and DNAT''ing of inbound connections... (don''t even know how to explain this correctly now).. I mean, I know what it does ... :D Cisco seems way to convoluted not only in its naming but setup as well..... "PAT/NAT overloading" many to one for outgoing Masq''ing and "static PAT" for Shorewalls/*nix DNAT or destination Nat, I believe.. I''m just wondering if there''s a set "*address translation" naming standard. I basically understand all the different ways to employ the various *address translation types but I just found Cisco naming and configuration to be utterly absurd.. Works fine and fast but convoluted... big time... The reason I ask on this list is because there''s allot of Old-School *nix users that have graciously helped me get to where I''m at today with Linux and usually have some good history comparisons/lessons. Thanks, Joshua Banks