Using a public IP instead of a private IP

[Dave Hagan]

I am thinking about using public IP addresses instead of internal private IP addresses in the setup of my servers. What are the disadvantages of using public IP addresses? My clients would all use private IP addresses on a class A network. Someone told me once that I wouldn’t want to use public IP addresses because all of my clients would have to go through the Internet to get their home directories.

[giskard22]

I don’t think what you were told is accurate. It’ll all depend on the setup of your routing devices. If you’re only using a small network with a single home/office-type router, you probably have to stick with internal IPs, though you can set your server to be the DMZ (essentially, all packets addressed to the router’s external IP will be forwarded to that computer). You could also simply forward only the ports that you want accessible to the outside world; that’s the typical thing to do and its probably best for security.

You should probably only use external IP addresses on your server if you want it to be easily accessible to the outside world on a bunch of different ports, or if you’re on a sizeable network where routing changes or opening ports in a firewall require someone else’s involvement. In that case, you can get your network people to give you an externally-accessible IP address, and they’ll take care of the rest.

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