port

In computer networking a port is an application-specific or process-specific software construct serving as a communications endpoint in a computer's host operating system. A port is associated with an IP address of the host, as well as the type of protocol used for communication. In plain English, the purpose of ports is to uniquely identify different applications or processes running on a single computer and thereby enable them to share a single physical connection to a packet-switched network like the Internet.
The protocols that primarily use ports are the Transport Layer protocols, such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) of the Internet Protocol Suite. A port is identified for each address and protocol by a 16-bit number, commonly known as the port number. The port number, added to a computer's IP address, completes the destination address for a communications session. That is, data packets are routed across the network to a specific destination IP address, and then, upon reaching the destination computer, are further routed to the specific process bound to the destination port number.
Note that it is the combination of IP address and port number together that must be globally unique. Thus, different IP addresses or protocols may use the same port number for communication; e.g., on a given host or interface UDP and TCP may use the same port number, or on a host with two interfaces, both addresses may be associated with a port having the same number.
Of the thousands of enumerated ports, about 250 well-known ports are reserved by convention to identify specific service types on a host. In the client-server model of application architecture, ports are used to provide a multiplexing service on each server-side port number that network clients connect to for service initiation, after which communication can be reestablished on other connection-specific port numbers.

Technical details

Transport Layer protocols, such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), specify a source and destination port number in their packet headers. A port number is a 16-bit unsigned integer, thus ranging from 1 to 65535 (port number 0 is reserved and can't be used). A process associates its input or output channels via Internet sockets, a type of file descriptor, with a transport protocol, a port number and an IP address. This process is known as binding, and enables sending and receiving data via the network. The operating system's networking software has the task of transmitting outgoing data from all application ports onto the network, and forwarding arriving network packets to a process by matching the packet's IP address and port number. Only one process may bind to a specific IP address and port combination using the same transport protocol. Common application failures, sometimes called port conflicts, occur when multiple programs attempt to bind to the same port numbers on the same IP address using the same protocol.
Applications implementing common services often use specifically reserved, well-known port numbers for receiving service requests from client hosts. This process is known as listening and involves the receipt of a request on the well-known port and establishing a one-to-one server-client connection, using the same local port number; other clients may continue to connect to the listening port. This works because a TCP connection is identified by the tuple {local address, local port, remote address, remote port}.^[1] The well-known ports are defined by convention overseen by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
The core network services, such as the World-Wide Web, typically use small port numbers less than 1024. In many operating systems special privileges are required for applications to bind to these ports, because these are often deemed critical to the operation of IP networks. Conversely, the client end of a connection typically uses a high port number allocated for short term use, therefore called an ephemeral port.
The port numbers are encoded in the transport protocol packet header, and they can be readily interpreted not only by the sending and receiving computers, but also by other components of the networking infrastructure. In particular, firewalls are commonly configured to differentiate between packets based on their source or destination port numbers. Port forwarding is an example application of this.
The practice of attempting to connect to a range of ports in sequence on a single computer is commonly known as port scanning. This is usually associated either with malicious cracking attempts or with network administrators looking for possible vulnerabilities to help prevent such attacks.
Port connection attempts are frequently monitored and logged by computers. The technique of port knocking uses a series of port connections (knocks) from a client computer to enable a server connection.