up vote 1 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

Am I able to assign the static IP address that my ISP provides me directly to my router?

My ISP are telling me that I have to assign the IP to a server inside the network instead, and cannot assign it directly to the router.

Can anyone clarify this?

link|improve this question
Can you give us some idea of your order of magnitude? Is this your house or some sort of datacentre? If the former and you've got a linksys or something, in all likelihood your public IP is assigned to it. – stillinbeta Feb 22 '11 at 8:49
feedback

3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Well, if the router is providing NAT services to a bunch of machines on a LAN you would need to assign your public address to it, but it really depends on your setup so what have you got (router make, machines etc.)

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

As far as the ISP is concerned, any NIC with a MAC address is the same as any other. This means that the WAN interface on your router will appear the same to an ISP as will a NIC on a computer (except that if the ISP really cares to check, they can see who manufactured the NIC by analyzing the MAC address, so you can tell if it is a router or a computer NIC). There is no difference in how either operate on a network. The only reason they might say that is because their terms of service may limit you to one computer per connection.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote -1 down vote

The Fixed IP address your ISP provides has to be assigned to the external nic of you DSL/Router.

If you assign it to a computer inside your local network, its not going to work.

In my experience, the fixed ip are also DHCP distributed. I mean, the ISP creates a reservation for your router with the static IP, so everytime you turn on your router, it gets the fixed ip.

for assigning the external ip to a computer, just add the computer to the router DMZ

link|improve this answer
-1... adding the computer to the DMZ is completely going to bypass one of the main reasons to have a router interface your comps to the world in the first place... the hardware firewall... If you need certain protocols to be accessible to your computer, open ports in the router with port forwarding... Much safer solution than DMZing a computer... – g19fanatic Feb 22 '11 at 18:19
g19fanatic: its seems computer world is pretty new for you, so I'll explain this to you. If you want to use the external router IP address for your computer, the THE WAY TO GO is using DMZ. Also, you should think if the firewalls have a DMZ feature, theres is probably a reason... You can enable DMZ safely if you have a firewall in your computer, what you should have instead of relying in the router firewall. At least I answered the question, what Linker3000 did not. You neither, obviously. – Alejandro Angelico Feb 26 '11 at 20:26
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.