View Source: Port - Waikato Linux Users Group

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A term with a number of meanings:

[TCP] process identification number:
    [TCP/IP] has ports which when associated with an [IP] identify uniquely one end of a [TCP] (or [UDP]) connection.  Some ports are 'well known' and by convention programs listen on them, for instance port 22 by convention will have an ssh daemon listening on it. services(5) lists all these ports.

	A good analogy is a business with one telephone number (which corresponds to your computer's [IP] address), where every department/person in the business has their own extension number (which corresponds to a service on the computer using a specific port number).

[I/O] address:
    The range of [I/O] ports is a separate address space to talk to I/O devices. AddToMe

Adjustment of software for different environments:
    ''Porting'' is making software that runs on one type of computer or OperatingSystem run on another. Programs designed to make this process easy are said to be ''portable''.  The success of the [Unix] OperatingSystem is largely due it being very portable.

[BSD]'s PackageManagement system:
    As ports(7) says:
        The [FreeBSD] Ports Collection offers a simple way for users and administrators to install applications. Each port contains any patches necessary to make the original application source code compile and run on [BSD]. Compiling an application is as simple as typing <tt>make build</tt> in the port directory!  The MakeFile automatically fetches the application SourceCode, either from a local disk or via [FTP], unpacks it on your system, applies the patches, and compiles it. If all goes well, simply type <tt>make install</tt> to install the application.

22 pages link to Port:

Last edited on Tuesday, November 2, 2004 4:49:11 am by AristotlePagaltzis

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