6.8 Summary of Session 6

In this session you looked at how to configure a home gateway and considered the roles that it plays in a home network. A home gateway can be configured from a web browser on another device on the network. (The gateway contains a simple web server in order to produce these pages.)

The home gateway acts as a switch that connects wired and wireless devices within the LAN, provides a wireless access point, and is a router that connects the home network to the internet. It uses network address translation (NAT) to allow private addresses to be used on the home network, and may also function as a firewall. It provides DHCP to automatically configure devices that join the home network. Configuration includes access to a DNS server to convert domain names to IP addresses; some gateways are capable of acting as a simple DNS server.

You can see that the home gateway carries out many roles in a home network, all conveniently packaged into a small but sophisticated device.