🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul16.145850.1980@edfd.uucp> markus@edfd.uucp (Markus Gruenkorn (MAGIC)) writes:
   In our company we have decided to connect to the world wide
   internet.  Therefore I think we have to apply for a world wide
   unique IP address. 

Yes, you (or your IP connectivity provider) will need to work that out
with hostmaster@nic.ddn.mil.

   My problem is, if we get this IP address we don't want to change
   all our local IP addresses we are using now.  

You could use an IP address from your assigned space on the outside of
a gateway system, and continue using your old address space
internally.  That way, people could connect to that gateway machine,
then invoke Internet-capable applications there.  The gateway machine
would operate as your mail hub, name server, etc.

The advantage of this scheme is that your network would be firewalled
from the Inernet and all your network-related administrative headaches
would be localized to that machine.  The disadvantage of this scheme
is that individual hosts on your network wouldn't have direct access
to the Internet.

   I don't want to change 500 nodes.?  

This is why I encourage everyone, whether or not they know yet that
they'll someday be connecting to the rest of the world, to get an
officially-assigned IP network number at the very beginning, while
they're still small, and save the headache later when they eventually
do get connected.  I've seen networks larger than 500 nodes with your
problem, and while it's not pleasant, it's at least a do-able task.