Are ports the same for Linux and Microsoft?
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 at
02:50
This is a question I came across and I can’t seem to find a yes/no or comparison answer anywhere.
Was wondering if someone here could help?
Filed under: Microsoft
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Hello,
Ports are not specific to Linux or Microsoft. Ports are part of internet protocol. So yes ports are the same regardless of operating system.
Different ports are used for different operations. For example port 80 is the standard http or web port. Web browsers by default connect over port 80 unless you specify otherwise.
Example:
If you typed in a web browser:
http://domain.com:1000
Your web would try to connect to domain.com over port 1000. Chances are nothing would be listening over port 1000 and the connection would fail. If no port is specified, the browser would use port 80.
Additional links:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/port.html
http://www.w3schools.com/tcpip/default.asp
http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers
Good Luck!
Ryan Bradley
Junior Server Engineer
HostMySite.com
http://hostmysite.com/?utm_source=bb
Assuming you are talking about TCP/IP ports – then:
They are, conceptually, the same thing, and common services usually run on standard ports for the service irrespective of operating system (but any service could be run on a non-standard port if the person running the service wanted to do that)
yes, they are. The drivers for them are different, but the information that gets carried across them will be read in precisely the same way – in http or ftp format, depending on where you are getting the info from.
Not sure what you mean by "the same". Ports are external connections that a computer can offer and that the system can open. You can open up to 65536 ports numbered from 0 to 65535.
Ports up to 1000 are generally considered special as the system has standard uses for them while the rest are free for the user to do what they want (some programs can open them, etc).
In this respect they are the same, on Linux and Windows, with the difference that Linux keeps a tight leash on the ports. On Windows you can also mess with the reserved ports and cause some havoc.
What the ports do, that’s not longer a matter of what OS you’re running but what services and what software you have installed.
On Windows for example, port 445 is usually used for the Micrsoft-DS service. Naturally, on Linux you won’t have it, so port 445 won’t be reserved for anything.
If the machine runs a webserver (Apache or IIS), then port 80 will be occupied by one of these. If you’re not, then port 80 will be free.
By default, installing Skype will also take over port 80 (case in which all that matters is which service starts first, the webserver or Skype, first one up gets port 80).
So, it depends from which point of view you’re asking the question.
sometimes
If you mean network ports, then they are defined as a standard way of communicating between devices.
So if they are supposed to be used for a known service, they better use the same port otherwise others won’t be able to communicate.
If you meant something else for port, you may want to refine your question.