this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023

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Explain Like I'm Five

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ELI5: In computer networking, what is a port? (self.explainlikeimfive)

submitted 1 year ago by BackOnMyBS to c/explainlikeimfive

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I often see that network settings have a field for logical port. What is this field.referring to?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

A port is like an apartment number. Except instead of apartments, it’s just mailboxes. Bob’s mailbox is number 25. If you want to get a message to Bob, uou write “box 25” on the address.

A port number is just an additional piece of info that the operating system associates with a particular program. If something comes in on port 22, the sshd is going to handle it because it’s “listening on port 22”, meaning that it has registered itself with the OS as the recipient of anything that comes in marked “port 22”.