how to choose port

I have written a special purpose server
that I plan to put on the Internet. Is
there guidance on what ports I should
or should not use?
Thanks,
Mike.

Hi Mike -

On Sat, 04 Mar 2006 13:22:50 -0500, Mike - EMAIL IGNORED
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I have written a special purpose server
>that I plan to put on the Internet. Is
>there guidance on what ports I should
>or should not use?

http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers

You should probably stay away from the "Well Known Ports" (0 to 1023).

--
Ken
http://www.kensims.net/

Most specialized servers use a port number between 1024-9999. Randomly
pick one and check that nothing else uses it. Alot of private networks
like the one at my college filter out alot of these ports, so if you
plan on making this publically accessable you might run into problems.
If I was writing something today, I'd try and make it run on top of
http protocol and write it as a cgi script or module for apache. That
way you can use port 80 without hogging the port. That also makes it
easy to write clients in stuff java.


Mike - EMAIL IGNORED wrote:
> I have written a special purpose server
> that I plan to put on the Internet. Is
> there guidance on what ports I should
> or should not use?
> Thanks,
> Mike.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Most specialized servers use a port number between 1024-9999. Randomly
> pick one and check that nothing else uses it. Alot of private networks
> like the one at my college filter out alot of these ports, so if you
> plan on making this publically accessable you might run into problems.
> If I was writing something today, I'd try and make it run on top of
> http protocol and write it as a cgi script or module for apache. That
> way you can use port 80 without hogging the port. That also makes it
> easy to write clients in stuff java.
>
>
> Mike - EMAIL IGNORED wrote:
>> I have written a special purpose server
>> that I plan to put on the Internet. Is
>> there guidance on what ports I should
>> or should not use?
>> Thanks,
>> Mike.
>

1024 to 65535 - size of a 16 bit int

Steve Welsh wrote:
> (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> > Most specialized servers use a port number between 1024-9999. Randomly
> > pick one and check that nothing else uses it. Alot of private networks
> > like the one at my college filter out alot of these ports, so if you
> > plan on making this publically accessable you might run into problems.
> > If I was writing something today, I'd try and make it run on top of
> > http protocol and write it as a cgi script or module for apache. That
> > way you can use port 80 without hogging the port. That also makes it
> > easy to write clients in stuff java.
> >
> >
> > Mike - EMAIL IGNORED wrote:
> >> I have written a special purpose server
> >> that I plan to put on the Internet. Is
> >> there guidance on what ports I should
> >> or should not use?
> >> Thanks,
> >> Mike.
> >
>
> 1024 to 65535 - size of a 16 bit int

Yes those are the limits, but most people try to keep it to 4 base10
digits so its easier to remember.