PortMap

What is PortMap?

A community-curated reference for what actually runs on any network port.

Every networked service listens somewhere. PortMap maps port numbers to the software, daemons, and protocols behind them — each entry backed by a verifiable source, all of it searchable and available through a clean JSON API.

It exists because the two canonical references both fall short in practice. The IANA registry is authoritative but narrow — it only lists formally assigned ports. Wikipedia's port list is broader but a sprawling table that's painful to filter or query. Neither documents the long tail: self-hosted apps, niche daemons, internal tooling, or malware C2 ports. PortMap mirrors both upstreams and adds reviewed community entries on top.

What you can do with it

  • Enrich scan output

    Turn raw nmap / masscan results into context. Know what an open port likely runs before you touch it.

  • Annotate logs & traffic

    Resolve dst_port=8086 to InfluxDB at ingest time across firewall, NetFlow, or NIDS pipelines — straight from the API.

  • Recon & attribution

    Map an exposed-service inventory against known software defaults for OSINT, Shodan-style enumeration, and red-team recon.

  • Verify with sources

    Every claim links to a receipt — a line of source code, a vendor doc, an RFC, or a man page you can check yourself.

Contribute a port

Know a port belongs to a piece of software and we don't have it — or our entry is wrong? Adding or correcting one takes under a minute.

  1. Open the submit form from any page, or hit + Add entry on a port page.
  2. Fill in the details — port, protocol(s), the application, and a short description.
  3. Cite a source. A source-code line, vendor doc, RFC, or man page. This is non-negotiable: every claim needs a receipt.
  4. Submit. An admin reviews it, then it goes live and into the API — or gets sent back with a reason.

See recent additions

Reference

A short primer on the terms used across the site.

Port ranges

Well-known 0 – 1023

Core internet services — HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, DNS, SMTP. Binding here needs root or CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE.

Registered 1024 – 49151

IANA-assigned to vendors (PostgreSQL 5432, Minecraft 25565). No special privileges to bind; lots of overlap in practice.

Dynamic 49152 – 65535

Ephemeral. The OS picks these as source ports for outbound connections; never assumed to belong to anyone.

Transport protocols

TCP
Reliable, ordered, connection-oriented. The default for anything needing guaranteed delivery — HTTP, SSH, email, databases.
UDP
Unreliable, connectionless, low-overhead. DNS, video, gaming, DHCP, QUIC. Fire-and-forget.
SCTP
Reliable like TCP, with multi-streaming and multi-homing. Telecom signalling and some WebRTC plumbing.
DCCP
Unreliable like UDP but with congestion control. Designed for streaming media; rarely seen in the wild.

Status terms

Official
The protocol is the actual deployed transport for this service. Real software listens here.
Assigned
IANA reserved the protocol for the service, but nothing uses it in practice.
Reserved
Set aside by the spec (e.g. port 0) and not available for general assignment.
Unofficial
A widespread use that was never formally assigned. Plenty of self-hosted apps land here.