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My employer has business-level cable modem service, and we have a block of five static IP addresses. Until this morning, we've been using IPCop running on an old box in order to facilitate NAT'ing and port forwarding from the five external IP's to various servers within the internal network. Unfortunately the IPCop box died a sudden death this morning, and we're left limping along on a temporary Linksys wireless router. We've been able to restore email by using that single static IP as the external address it's using, but we need to service all five in order to run the business.

I'm looking to purchase as inexpensive of a router as possible that can handle port forwarding across multiple external IP addresses. While particular product recommendations are welcome from my point of view, I'm more interested in what I need to be looking for to be able to determine if a particular model can support this configuration.

TL;DR Version: What is the term (assuming that there is one) that is used to describe the a router/firewall that supports forwarding ports from multiple external addresses to various internal addresses?

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  • Why not rebuild the IPCop box?
    – DanBig
    Apr 1, 2011 at 17:23
  • @Dan: That's a possibility, but we'd like to move to something a little more reliable if possible. We've had issues with IPCop going down in the past, so we'd like to try to move to a dedicated networking device if one is available.
    – Adam Robinson
    Apr 1, 2011 at 17:26

3 Answers 3

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You are looking for "Port forwarding" or DNAT.

I know Juniper calls it VIP for Virtual IP...

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  • Thanks. I'm familiar with port forwarding, but my specific requirement here is to be able to handle multiple external IP addresses and forward specific ports from specific addresses.
    – Adam Robinson
    Apr 1, 2011 at 17:31
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    Honestly, I never encountered a device that had port forwarding and that couldn't handle what you are describing. If you want to be sure, I know Watchguard are pretty complete devices watchguard.com/products/xtm-2/overview.asp
    – Alex
    Apr 1, 2011 at 17:36
  • @Alex: Good call. I recently installed an XTM23 at a client site and it works flawlessly. I also run a couple old Firebox X1000 units in my own offices.
    – joeqwerty
    Apr 1, 2011 at 17:50
  • @Alex: Our experience (other than with IPCop) is with consumer-grade equipment like the Linksys router we're limping along with. I took a quick look at the Watchguard systems, but it seems like a bit more than we really need (especially in the support department). Is there anything more in the couple hundred $$ range that might do what we're after?
    – Adam Robinson
    Apr 1, 2011 at 17:59
  • @Adam I would say that the downtime your are experiencing at the moment is well worth the extra 200$ you will put on the device :) . But for cheaper devices you'll have to go with Linksys, D-Link or Netgear.
    – Alex
    Apr 1, 2011 at 18:11
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I suggest grabbing an old desktop/server and run PFsense. multiple IPs are called Virtual IPs and you want to use ARP verses CARP

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We are a small office and we use Juniper SSG5s that cost in the $400 -$700 range.

IMO, juniper calls what youre asking for MIPs - you Map an external IP to an internal IP and then create a policy to allow certain types of traffic/ports etc.

Juniper support techs will actually remote in and show you how to do this - their support is worth the money.

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