Assign a public static IP address to a router

Question

Am I able to assign the static IP address that my ISP provides me directly to my router?

My ISP are telling me that I have to assign the IP to a server inside the network instead, and cannot assign it directly to the router.

Can anyone clarify this?

Solution

Well, if the router is providing NAT services to a bunch of machines on a LAN you would need to assign your public address to it, but it really depends on your setup so what have you got (router make, machines etc.)

Comments

[stillinbeta]

Can you give us some idea of your order of magnitude? Is this your house or some sort of datacentre? If the former and you've got a linksys or something, in all likelihood your public IP is assigned to it.

[aabejero]

-1... adding the computer to the DMZ is completely going to bypass one of the main reasons to have a router interface your comps to the world in the first place... the hardware firewall... If you need certain protocols to be accessible to your computer, open ports in the router with port forwarding... Much safer solution than DMZing a computer...

[Alex Angelico]

g19fanatic: its seems computer world is pretty new for you, so I'll explain this to you. If you want to use the external router IP address for your computer, the THE WAY TO GO is using DMZ. Also, you should think if the firewalls have a DMZ feature, theres is probably a reason... You can enable DMZ safely if you have a firewall in your computer, what you should have instead of relying in the router firewall. At least I answered the question, what Linker3000 did not. You neither, obviously.