Public IP addresses and accessing a server

[Chris Tanner]

We changed ISPs and got a range of public IPs. Currently we have the ISPs router in bridge mode and our router plugged into it. Our router is doing DHCP, we are runnin on a domain, and have the server using a static private IP address. I want home users to be able to access several (shared) folders on the server from home. I believe I can put the router to bridge mode (or remove it completely)and give the PCs all public IP addresses but I am pretty sure that is not a good way to go. Should I put a 2nd NIC into the server and have 1 with a public IP address and connect it before the router and the 2nd with a private address plugged into our switch behind our router.

 

[Emerald]

neither one sounds like a very secure idea.

you should look into VPN

 

[glennglenn]

Giving accessing of the server is a bad idea well enabling public IP addresses can be done but allocating limited access via username, password and treating yourself as a proxy server.

 

[riser]

Router should have a public IP address. Everything internally should have a private IP address. If you want users to be able to access files from home you should look into setting up a VPN or absolute worst case a terminal server that they can connect to and then access the data off that server.

Given that you're probably a small setup, you could set up port forwarding on your router to point certain ports to certain computers. So if someone RDP'd to the public IP address with port 5100, it could forward to a computer listening for port 5100 as RDP.