TCP/IP Ports Table Explained

Data transfer from one computer to another requires certain set of rules. TCP/IP protocol suite is a collection of protocols used for the Internet services. TCP and IP were the two protocols which were standardized at first and after which started the standardization of the other protocols. The TCP/IP suite contains networking protocols used for setting up the Internet. Internet is nothing but a huge connection of computers and network devices. These network devices and computers over the Internet have an IP address. The IP address has a number of TCP ports. TCP ports initiate connections and can receive connections. However, the ports which are receiver ports are more important than that of the initiating ports. Therefore, the people who want to use these ports must know, where to search for them.

TCP/IP Ports Explained

The TCP/IP ports list given here contains ports that are in use, as well as those which are rarely used. Let us have a look.

Ports	Service Name	Description
0	Reserved	Reserved
1	TCP MUX	TCP Port Service Multiplexer
7	Echo	Echo
21	FTP	File Transfer Protocol is used to send large files.
22	SSH	Secure Shell
23	Telnet	Telnet is a network protocol and uses the command line interface on the remote computer. It is an interactive session based on protocol and uses a connection based protocol.
25	SMTP	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol uses commands for interaction and can send large files from one device to another.
38	RAP	Route Access Protocol
41	Graphics	Graphics
44	MPM-flags	MPM FLAGS Protocol
45	MPM	Message Processing Module
49	TACACS	Local Host Protocol (TACACS)
50	Re-Mail-Ck	Remote Mail Checking Protocol
52	XNS	Xerox Network Systems
53	Domain	Domain Name Server uses UPD for interaction and TCP for relatively large files.
57	MTP	Mail Transfer Protocol
67 (only UDP)	BOOTPS	Bootstrap Protocol Server
68 (only UDP)	BOOTPC	Bootstrap Protocol Client
69	TFTP	Trivial File Transfer Protocol
80	HTTP	World Wide Web HTTP (Hypertext transfer Protocol) is a TCP based messaging protocol.
93 (only TCP)	DCP	Device Control Protocol
109 (only TCP)	POP2	Post Office Protocol 2
110 (only TCP)	POP3	Post Office Protocol 3
143	IMAP	Internet Message Access Protocol
153	SGMP	Simple Gateway Monitoring Protocol
161 (only TCP)	SNMP	Simple Network Management Protocol
179 (only TCP)	BGP	Border Gateway Protocol
389	LDAP	Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
427	SLP	Service Location Protocol
444	SNPP	Simple Network Paging Protocol
631	IPP	Internet Printing Protocol

The transport layer of the Internet protocol suite uses the TCP and UDP. In addition, some of the other protocols use numerical identifiers for the host to host communication. These numerical identifiers are called port numbers. These endpoints in the host to host communication are called ports. These port numbers are assigned by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) and on most of the systems, these ports are used as processes (programs) only. These ports, which are named by logical connections are connected to carry long term conversations. Always the receiver endpoint is assigned a port number, so that the transmitter endpoint must know the port number (in turn the receiver endpoint), to which the connection should be made to start the conversation. Initially, when this concept came into existence, there were only 0-255 ports. Later, 0-1023 ports were introduced and the range was expanded.