I am just starting to configure firewall's/gateway's for private LAN's to communicate to the internet. There is one big misunderstanding that I have that I would like someone to explain to me to make it more clear. I thought that when you configured a firewall/gateway/router to connect a private LAN to the internet that you would only have two addresses for the firewall/gateway, the private LAN IP for the workstations on the LAN to NAT through, and a public (static or dynamic) IP address for the WAN side of the firewall/gateway. However, I am under the understanding now that the firewall/gateway should actually have three IP's assigned to it. The private LAN IP, the public WAN IP, and the gateway IP address. Is this true, and if so, could you explain this to make it more clear. If I already have a public (static) IP address configured for my firewall/gateway for the outside, then why do I need another public IP for the router (which is the same physical pirce of hardware)?

Hi Chris, There are only 2 addresses (Internal/LAN and External/Internet/WAN) unless you have a DMZ. The gateway is the router's internal address. Now some routers can handle multiple WAN (Internet) addresses mapped to multiple LAN addresses. Perhaps that is where the confusion lies. Peter

No, when I configured my firewall/gateway it asked for a WAN gateway address, a public WAN address, and a LAN address