I am getting reay to install DSL internet service st my home. The ISP that I am looking at signing up with has to DSL options, the major option that concerns me are IP adresses on plan contains a dynamic IP address, and the opthe plan contain (4) static IP's, I do know the differnce between the two. What I am wanting to setup is a LAN at home that can access the internet (which I know I could do with the (4) static IP's), but I also want to experiment with VPN from outside my internal LAN. I would like to be able to access my local LAN from anywhere by setting up a VPN. Will I be able to do this with a dynamic IP if I have a Cable/DSL router on my LAN? If I purchase a router (for example a Cisco 2500 series) will it contain its own static IP that I could use to connect to any PC in my local LAN from anywhere on the internet? What is the best way to set this up? Do Cable/DSL routers made by companies such as Linksys contain their own static IP, I noticed by reading the box that you can configure a VPN and IPSec through the router, is this still possible with a dynamic IP from my ISP, or would I need a static IP?

it is possible as long as if you have a static ip. However, if you split your ips and use a router to distribute ips for all other machines, you may have a problem. In other word, to access vpn, you have to act like you are not using router. I have a router with one static ip, I can't go out to vpn at all. However, I have done some consulting with some company. The companies have few static ips, and it is not using internal ips. And it was able to use vpn and goes outside

Chris, You'd better get a 1 static IP and a router that supports VPN. VPN works for static and assign IP's, but it would be a hassle for you to change a destination IP every time you try to connect via VPN. RE: Second reply. Your router might not support VPN connection. You need to get a router with a VPN support. PanMarcepan

You don't need a static ip address to setup a VPN,it would nice but not necessary, what type of VPN do you want to setup? You only need one IP address to setup a VPN at home. PPTP VPN? IPSEC VPN? L2TP VPN? I would just buy a DSL VPN router, they are cheap now. Linksys has them and many other vendors has them as well. The one I have runs about 300.00 US , a DSL/Cable modem VPN router and it's has a stateful firewall. It's a little linux box. www.snapgear.com I own a snapgear lite +, I use to run a Redhat box with a VPN(freeS/Wan)(IPSec and PPTP) and firewall set together. For a Windows IPSec client you can use for free, SSH Sentinel (www.ssh.com) and it works great. To test it Load SSH Sent on your windows machine, ssh site has many many doc and how to configure this program to your needs, you will use the road warrior config.

i want to set up my own VPN, and i'm not sure of something. if i get a router with VPN support, does that mean it has a built-in VPN server? or would i have to set up my own on one of my pcs?

Yep, the router has a built-in VPN Server inside. You can buy a cheap DSL VPN router under 150.00 US now. Most of the DSL router support IPsec (VPN), but there are other routers can support a few other types of VPN, PPTP, IPsec and LTP2

Sorry, L2TP