> Source: [sk140432](https://support.checkpoint.com/results/sk/sk140432)

# sk140432 - "NAT Hide failure - there are currently no available ports for hide operation" appears in SmartLog

| Property | Value |
|----------|-------|
| Solution ID | sk140432 |
| Date Created | 2018-11-18 |
| Last Modified | 2025-01-22 |
| Technical Level | Advanced |
| Products | Security Gateway |
| Versions | R82.10, R82, R81.20, R81.10 (EOS), R81 (EOS) |
| OS | Gaia |

## Symptoms

- "NAT Hide failure - there are currently no available ports for hide operation" appears in SmartLog.

## Cause

The number of connections with the same Hide IP address, to the same destination IP address, exceeds the number of available NAT ports.

Limitation - Security Gateway has a maximum of 50,000 ports for each NAT pool - **\<hide ip, destination, IP Protocol\>**.

Therefore, it is possible to have more than 50,000 simultaneous NATed connections. As a result, a Security Gateway might exhaust available NAT ports, because it hides all the networks behind one IP address (that of the Security Gateway), and maps all the connections to the same NAT pool.

## Solution

This solution requires authentication. Please log in to view the full solution.

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