5 Easy Ways to Check for Open Ports on Linux

Know your network inside out by regularly checking for open ports with these Linux commands.

Open network ports are the easiest entry points to your network. Sometimes, there might be unwanted services running on ports that are externally visible from the internet. In case these services are vulnerable, your network would be at constant threat of an attack as every day the entire internet is being mass scanned for vulnerable services on open ports.

Learn how you can scan and view open ports on your Linux systems, so you can defend your network from threats.

Network ports are logical access points of your system that can be used as a channel to host multiple services. A port is represented by a 16-bit integer so, the highest port number is 65535.

You can think of ports like windows and doors of a house—basically all the different entry points to a house or, a computer. Ports are of three types: system ports (1-1023), registered ports (1024-49151), and ephemeral, or dynamic ports (49152-65535).