For those responsible for configuring and managing web hosting, it’s useful to know the numbers for common services.

What are network ports?

Network ports are provided at the Transport Layer by TCP and UDP protocols. These port numbers help to control internet traffic. Port numbers are used to determine what protocol incoming traffic should be directed to. Ports allow a single host with a single IP address to run network services. Each port number identifies a distinct service, and each host can have 65535 ports per IP address. Registered port numbers are currently assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and were assigned by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) before March 21, 2001.

There are three categories for ports:

  • From 0 to 1023 – well-known ports assigned to common protocols and services
  • From 1024 to 49151 – registered ports assigned by ICANN to a specific service
  • From 49152 to 65 535 – dynamic (private, high) ports range from 49,152 to 65,535. Can be used by any service on an ad hoc basis. Ports are assigned when a session is established and released when the session ends.

 Commonly used TCP ports

Web

Port NumberFunction
80HTTP
443SSL
21FTP
990FTPs
22SFTP/SSH
3306MySQL

   Email

PortFunction
110POP – Incoming
995POP SSL – Incoming
143IMAP – Incoming
993                                          IMAP SSL – Incoming
25, 80, 3535SMTP – Outgoing
465SMTP SSL – Outgoing


   cPanel

PortFunction
2082cPanel TCP inbound
2083cPanel SSL TCP inbound
2086WHM TCP inbound
2087WHM SSL TCP inbound
2089WHM SSL TCP inbound
2095Webmail TCP inbound
2096Webmail SSL TCP inbound