Others have mentioned using offsite servers; I use two, one from Rimuhosting and one from Linode. I drill VPNs to them for email and backups. That means I do not need routable IP addresses for my own machines, and if I turn off the VPNs I am more immune to attack.
The major disadvantage is the extra cost, but it is only a bit more than the static IP cost from most ISPs. One advantage/disadvantage is that my servers have Über-bandwidth. They can talk to each other (Dallas to Fremont) at gigabit speeds. However, if they get slashdotted, I go through my monthly bandwidth allotment in a few minutes. Perhaps a few of you can share an offsite virtual server, running multiple URLs and virtual servers for your websites, divving up incoming and outgoing mail, etc. That would reduce the expense and share the maintenance burden, though it would mean finding trustworthy "disk-mates". Regards static IP to the home, your /16 is probably shared with a lot of home windows machines. Many of those are Pwned, and spewing spam, so your whole digital neighborhood may get blacklisted by some big email services with sloppy spam filtering policies. Also, we are nearing the end of the IPV4 age. Static addresses /should/ be expensive - they need to be reused and not just sat on. With IPV6 becoming the only way the internet can expand, I suspect ISPs will someday offer free static /64 subnets to anyone willing to give up their single dynamic IPV4 address (to resell in China). Keith -- Keith Lofstrom [email protected] Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
