Sonic.net

Hi
I have a Fusion account which fixes 8 IPs to me. Currently I use a typical router which is assigned 1 of the IPs with a db server using port forwarding.
I now need to setup a second server and it needs a different IP. How do I do this?
One suggestion was to use a simple switch/hub and let it manage the calls with the current router after the switch and the new server another port on the switch.
Anybody out there ever do this????

Using a switch at the dsl modem is certainly the most obvious way to do it. It really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Whatever you end up doing, make sure that the devices on your network are properly firewalled.

There are some SOHO routers that have a 1:1 NAT feature. In addition to the single IP for the normal 1:N NAT feature, there are settings that allow you to specify other IP's from the WAN to map to IP's on the LAN, either a single IP or a range of IP's. The Linksys RVnnn series of routers have this, I'm sure there are others.

Another way is to simply parallel multiple cheap routers. Put a switch after the DSL modem, then feed the WAN input of 2 (or more) routers. Assign each router a different WAN and LAN address. Also bridge the LAN ports together as well. Make sure that only one router has DHCP enabled. You can then use port forwarding on each parallel router for each internal server.

I've used the above technique when the simple routers don't have all the features (VPN's, etc.) that I need.