Multiple static IPs going to your router

[latrosicarius]

Hi, i asked before if this was possible, and people said yes, so i ordered 5 IP addresses from my ISP and they told me to set it up in my router.

So I went to my router and entered the default gateway, the primary & secondary DNS servers and one of the 5 static IP addresses they gave me.

It works, but how do I add the other 4 static IPs?

I went on LinkSys's live help support site and the tech guy didn't seem to know anything about it and/or didn't think it was possible. Here is the conversation. Can anyone let me know if he is right and i bought these IPs for NO reason? Thank you

Alice: Hi, my name is Alice. How may I help you?
You: i was given a block of 5 static IPs by my ISP
You: i was able to set up the router to use one of them
You: and i need to set up the rest some how
Alice: May I know what are those static IP addresses for?
You: they are for anything
You: one will be a website
You: another will be a game server
You: the rest i havnt decided yet
Alice: I see.
Alice: Can you please verify the exact model and version of your Linksys device?
You: RV042
Alice: Thank you.
Alice: Just to verify, you have the router configured already. Is that correct?
You: i have the router configured to use one of the IPs
You: my ISP gave me info such as: 5 IP addresses, the primary and secondary DNS servers, and the default gateway server
You: i entered all that information into the router and it works
You: except, i only entered one of the IPs because I don't know where to enter the others
Alice: Actually we can enter one of those static IP address on your router.
Alice: The rest of the static IP address is for your other possible DHCP server.
Alice: I can't understand why your ISP gave you 5 static IP addresses.
You: they gave me 5 static IPs because I asked them to
You: it is an extra 20 dollars per month for a block of 5 static IPs
Alice: We only need one static IP address in order for your router to work.
Alice: The other I think is reserve for additional DHCP server in your network.
You: i know that. and i said it DOES work
You: but, it is common for businesses to have more than one IP address all leading to the same internet connection.
Alice: That's correct.
Alice: But for sure, we only need static IP address per router.
You: im not sure what you are saying
Alice: You can have the other static IP address as reserve just in case the one that you're currently using will be having a problem.
Alice: I mean we only need one static IP address per router.
Alice: We can't enter them all in your router.

P.S. i changed his name for privacy. It's not actually "alice"

[aidanjt]

First of all, I need to know if the other 4 addresses cover *all* the machines attached to the router.

If so, all you have to do is reconfigure the DHCP server to only give out addresses in that subnet, and disable NAT, which will turn the linksys into a standard router. After that, all the machines should be publicly accessible, just make sure the firewall is set up correctly, because otherwise the machines attached to the router will be exposed to the internet, and will be able to *receive* traffic as well as transmit.

[latrosicarius]

i only have 2 machines behind the router. the plan was to have all the IPs go to one of those computers.

I know its possible to have more than one IP going to the same box. for instance, in a game server, one box can host multiple servers. Each server can have its own IP instead of using the same IP with a different port.

You might think it is a waste of an IP to do what I am saying, but not when the target population is not used to entering port numbers. All they know is to enter an IP and it will take them to the game server

[aidanjt]

i only have 2 machines behind the router. the plan was to have all the IPs go to one of those computers.

I know its possible to have more than one IP going to the same box. for instance, in a game server, one box can host multiple servers. Each server can have its own IP instead of using the same IP with a different port.

You might think it is a waste of an IP to do what I am saying, but not when the target population is not used to entering port numbers. All they know is to enter an IP and it will take them to the game server

No, I agree, this is a good use of virtual IPs for providing services. In this case, just set the IPs statically on the servers TCP/IP configuration menu. I'm reasonably certain even Windows can deal with multiple IPs per network interface. I vaguely recall reading about it somewhere.