NAT etc etc

I realise this question gets asked time and time again and I apologise
I watch this group with interest in the discussions about pfw's/routers
etc etc
BUT ;) my small network of a linux webserver,XP home (in the office)
w98 (in the workshop)and a diagnostic computer running w98 (also in the
workshop) are connecting to the internet via a Netcomm NB5Plus4W router
/modem.
Do I need to use pfw's on these other machines ?
I do know that under the 'advanced' tab of my router configuration it
says i can set up NAT there etc but I dont see any headings for this,it
does mention NAT with 'port forwarding'....<snip>
  Port Forwarding Configure Firewall and NAT pass-through to your
hosted applications.</snip>
are these two tied together somehow ?
I dont understand NAT (although i know what it stands for)
basically just interested in using my router to its maximum potential

Any help/advice/links are greatly appreciated

Regards
Geoff
Received on Sat Dec 3 04:18:41 2005