Construct · 1 fields · 2 citations

port: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a standalone construct Nearest construct by meaningsocketcompare the meanings

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Computer networking

A numbered service endpoint

A number that identifies one of the many communication endpoints on a single host, so that packets arriving at one machine reach the right process. Cerf and Kahn's 1974 protocol used a port as the address of a process within a host, and the design was fixed in the Transmission Control Protocol, where a 16-bit port number in each segment header separates one service from another (a web server on 80 or 443, mail on 25). The referent is a slot in an addressing scheme, not a place with cranes; it borrowed the harbor word for the idea of a point of entry, but a network port is a number carried in a header, and you cannot dock a ship in it.[1][2]

Unit: A 16-bit endpoint number on a networked host
Recovery means: Not applicable
Measured by: The destination service, read from the port field of a TCP or UDP header

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Nearby constructs

network4 fields · 6 citationsjingle · one word, four constructs host2 fields · 2 citationsjingle · one word, two constructs channel4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructs

References

Cerf, V. G., & Kahn, R. E. (1974). A protocol for packet network intercommunication. IEEE Transactions on Communications, 22(5), 637–648. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCOM.1974.1092259
Postel, J. (1981). Transmission Control Protocol (RFC 793). Internet Engineering Task Force.

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