Ports

A port is simply a channel of communication which is numbered between 1 and 65000. All network devices use them and most have the ability to change them when required. They were originally created to allow multiple programs to use the same IP address.

For example, port number 80 is famous port for HTTP and 69 is famous for Trivial File TransferProtocol(TFTP).Refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers for list of TCP and UDP port numbers.

Port Addressing

Identifying the Conversations

Consider the example of a computer simultaneously receiving and sending e-mail, instant messages, and web pages. The TCP and UDP based services keep track of the various applications that are communicating. To differentiate the segments and datagrams for each application, both TCP and UDP have header fields that can uniquely identify these applications. These unique identifiers are the port numbers. In the header of each segment or datagram, there is a source and destination port. The source port number is the number for this communication associated with the originating application on the local host. The destination port number is the number for this communication associated with the destination application on the remote host. Port numbers are assigned in various ways, depending on whether the message is a request or a response. While server processes have static port numbers assigned to them, clients dynamically choose a port number for each conversation. When a client application sends a request to a server application, the destination port contained in the header is the port number that is assigned to the service daemon running on the remote host. The client software must know what port number is associated with the server process on the remote host. This destination port number is configured, either by default or manually. For example, when a web browser application makes a request to a web server, the browser uses TCP and port number 80 unless otherwise specified. This is because TCP port 80 is the default port assigned to web-serving applications. Many common applications have default port assignments. The source port in a segment or datagram header of a client request is randomly generated. As long as it does not conflict with other ports in use on the system, the client can choose any port number. This port number acts like a return address for the requesting application. The Transport layer keeps track of this port and the application that initiated the request so that when a response is returned, it can be forwarded to the correct application. The requesting application port number is used as the destination port number in the response coming back from the server. The combination of the Transport layer port number and the Network layer IP address assigned to the host uniquely identifies a particular process running on a specific host device. This combination is called a socket. Occasionally, you may find the terms port number and socket used interchangeably. The term socket refers only to the unique combination of IP address and port number. A socket pair, consisting of the source and destination IP addresses and port numbers, is also unique and identifies the conversation between the two hosts. For example, an HTTP web page request being sent to a web server (port 80) running on a host with a Layer 3 IPv4 address of 192.168.1.20 would be destined to socket 192.168.1.20:80. If the web browser requesting the web page is running on host 192.168.100.48 and the Dynamic port number assigned to the web browser is 49152, the socket for the web page would be 192.168.100.48:49152.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) assigns port numbers. IANA is a standards body that is responsible for assigning various addressing standards.

There are different types of port numbers:

Well Known Ports (Numbers 0 to 1023) - These numbers are reserved for services and applications. They are commonly used for applications such as HTTP (web server) POP3/SMTP (e-mail server) and Telnet. By defining these well-known ports for server applications, client applications can be programmed to request a connection to that specific port and its associated service.

Registered Ports (Numbers 1024 to 49151) - These port numbers are assigned to user processes or applications. These processes are primarily individual applications that a user has chosen to install rather than common applications that would receive a Well Known Port. When not used for a server resource, these ports may also be used dynamically selected by a client as its source port.

Dynamic or Private Ports (Numbers 49152 to 65535) - Also known as Ephemeral Ports, these are usually assigned dynamically to client applications when initiating a connection. It is not very common for a client to connect to a service using a Dynamic or Private Port (although some peer-to-peer file sharing programs do).

Using both TCP and UDP

Some applications may use both TCP and UDP. For example, the low overhead of UDP enables DNS to serve many client requests very quickly. Sometimes, however, sending the requested information may require the reliability of TCP. In this case, the well-known port number of 53 is used by both protocols with this service.