NAT instances
A NAT instance provides network address translation (NAT). You can use a NAT instance to allow resources in a private subnet to communicate with destinations outside the virtual private cloud (VPC), such as the internet or an on-premises network. The resources in the private subnet can initiate outbound IPv4 traffic to the internet, but they can't receive inbound traffic initiated on the internet.
Important
NAT AMI is built on the last version of the Amazon Linux AMI, 2018.03, which reached the end of
standard support on December 31, 2020 and end of maintenance support on December 31, 2023. For
more information, see the following blog post: Amazon Linux AMI end of
life
If you use an existing NAT AMI, AWS recommends that you migrate to a NAT gateway. NAT gateways provide better availability, higher bandwidth, and requires less administrative effort. For more information, see Compare NAT gateways and NAT instances.
If NAT instances are a better match for your use case than NAT gateways, you can create your own NAT AMI from a current version of Amazon Linux as described in Create a NAT AMI.
