Base station serving as a Firewall

I have a MN 700 base station, and have a static IP
address (DSL connection) with a number of machines
connected via wired and wireless port(s) on the base
station. I'm looking for both a better understanding and
a "warm feeling" about protecting the machines from the
outside.
I have "holes" in my understanding, and I'm sure there
are misconceptions.
Is it possible for the outside world to see machines on
my net? If not, how does it hide thier identity, but
still allow packets to reach them? Does Remote Desk
allow the outside world to see a machine that is "remote
desktop enabled"?

As I understand the configuration - The router/base has
an IP address, and all of the machines on the network are
issued unique ID's by the base station when they first
boot. The outside world doesn't "know" about these
addresses, and my ISP only knows to send packets to the
static IP address it provided.
If machine "A" sends a message to a website and is
waiting for a reply how does the MN 700 know to route the
reply to machine "A"
Does the incoming packet have two pieces of info - one
which tells my ISP to send the packet to the static IP,
and a second piece that tells the MN 700 to pass the
packet to machine "A"?
if so, is the second piece of info a "msg id" allowing
the router to "lookup" which machine is supposed to get
this message, or does it include the IP address of
machine "A".
I'm guessing the machine "A" IP address isn't used, since
this would mean the outside world could "see" the machine.

To run a web server that the outside world will see, you
need to set up a DMZ (demilitarized zone) where the web
server will sit. This mahcine will be succeptible to
outside attacks so it should be locked down fairly well.
The DMZ server will sit outside of your network so your
other machines wont be seen from the outside. You may
also need to set up port forwarding for port 80 and route
any incoming requests to the DMZ based machine. This is
all done in the basestation managemnet tool.


>-----Original Message-----
>I have a MN 700 base station, and have a static IP
>address (DSL connection) with a number of machines
>connected via wired and wireless port(s) on the base
>station. I'm looking for both a better understanding and
>a "warm feeling" about protecting the machines from the
>outside.
>I have "holes" in my understanding, and I'm sure there
>are misconceptions.
>Is it possible for the outside world to see machines on
>my net? If not, how does it hide thier identity, but
>still allow packets to reach them? Does Remote Desk
>allow the outside world to see a machine that is "remote
>desktop enabled"?
>
>As I understand the configuration - The router/base has
>an IP address, and all of the machines on the network are
>issued unique ID's by the base station when they first
>boot. The outside world doesn't "know" about these
>addresses, and my ISP only knows to send packets to the
>static IP address it provided.
>If machine "A" sends a message to a website and is
>waiting for a reply how does the MN 700 know to route the
>reply to machine "A"
>Does the incoming packet have two pieces of info - one
>which tells my ISP to send the packet to the static IP,
>and a second piece that tells the MN 700 to pass the
>packet to machine "A"?
>if so, is the second piece of info a "msg id" allowing
>the router to "lookup" which machine is supposed to get
>this message, or does it include the IP address of
>machine "A".
>I'm guessing the machine "A" IP address isn't used, since
>this would mean the outside world could "see" the machine.
>
>.
>