What are TCP/IP ports?
Ports are used in TCP/IP to name the ends of logical connections that carry long-term conversations. A port is an abstraction to allow transport protocols such as User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) the capability of handling communications between multiple hosts. It allows a communication to be uniquely identified. The WinSock Proxy service uses ports extensively to provide a way of redirecting applications. For the purpose of providing services to unknown callers, a service contact port is defined. Each WinSock Proxy-enabled application specifies a port to be used as the contact port on the server for TCP or UDP. The contact port is sometimes called the well-known port. To some extent, these same port assignments are used with UDP. In order to use UDP, the application must supply the IP address and port number of the destination application. Ports are identified by a positive integer. Originally, the assigned ports available were in the range 0 255. C
