I would like to set up an Exhange 2000 mail server. Do i need a static IP for the server? We currently have DSL through a Cisco 675 router. Once i get the static Ip from my ISP, this is where i get confused. Does the static IP get assigned to the router, and then use NAT to route requests to an internal dynamic IP on the server like 10.0.0.100? Or is the static IP actually assigned to a NIC physically on the server and the router gets a dynamic IP? If its the second of the two options, i don't understand how mail would get where it's suppose to since the router is the hardware directly connected to the internet. Any help would be great! Tony

The static IP would be for the router. NAT is the process of translating internal IPs to external, essentially. What you would be looking for is port forwarding. Internally, you would still want the email server to have a static IP (like 10.0.0.101). Then you would configure the router to send all traffic on ports 25 (SMTP), 109 (POP2), 110(POP3) to the server's ip address. Explination: Someone sends email to yourdomain.net. DNS translates this to 23.45.6.7. The message is sent to 23.45.6.7:25. This hits the router. The router recognizes port 25 (x.x.x.x:port) as being in it's forward list. The router excepts the packets and sends them to host 10.0.0.101 on the internal network.

Actually, I was mistaken. In Cisco IOS port forwarding is a function of NAT. This how to will walk you right through it. http://www.swcp.com/swcp-web/kb/kb-view.php?94 :D

nice dwp! :)

Thanks! I thought that was how it worked but i had seen both answers in the past so i thought i would check! Tony