Application-level gateway
In the context of computer networking, an application-level gateway [1] (also known as ALG , application layer gateway , application gateway , application proxy , or application-level proxy [2] ) consists of a security component that augments a firewall or NAT employed in a computer network. It allows customized NAT traversal filters to be plugged into the gateway to support address and port translation for certain application layer "control/data" protocols such as FTP, BitTorrent, SIP, RTSP, file transfer in IM applications, etc. In order for these protocols to work through NAT or a firewall, either the application has to know about an address/port number combination that allows incoming packets, or the NAT has to monitor the control traffic and open up port mappings ( firewall pinhole ) dynamically as required. Legitimate application data can thus be passed through the security checks of the firewall or NAT that would have otherwise restricted the traffic for not meetin...