Service: netviewdm3 (IBM NetView Distribution Manager/6000 receive)
Protocols: TCP and UDP
Port Range: Well-known (0-1023)
Status: Officially assigned by IANA
Port 731 is the receive port for IBM NetView Distribution Manager/6000 (NetView DM/6000), a software distribution and change management system that operated across heterogeneous enterprise networks in the 1990s and early 2000s.
What NetView DM/6000 Did
Before cloud deployment, before Ansible, before package managers became ubiquitous, enterprise IT departments faced a problem: how do you distribute software updates to hundreds or thousands of workstations running different operating systems across a TCP/IP network?
NetView DM/6000 was IBM's answer. The system provided both automated ("push") and user-controlled ("pull") software installation across networks containing AIX/6000, OS/2, Windows, HP-UX, and DOS client workstations.12
A change control administrator could schedule installations to be pushed to workstations automatically, or authorize users to pull updates at their own pace. The system handled version control, dependency management, and file distribution—the unglamorous backbone work that kept enterprise networks running.
Port 731 was where these workstations received instructions and software packages from the NetView DM/6000 server.
The Network Management Context
NetView DM/6000 was part of IBM's larger NetView family of network management tools. AIX NetView/6000 managed SNMP devices, set network topologies, monitored networks, diagnosed problems, and measured performance.3
The Distribution Manager component specifically tackled software deployment. It could integrate with NetView Distribution Manager for MVS, allowing software distribution across both mainframe and distributed computing environments—a genuinely complex orchestration problem in the 1990s.4
After IBM acquired Tivoli for $743 million in March 1996, the SystemView and NetView product lines eventually migrated to Tivoli management. NetView DM/6000 Release 1.2 was later migrated to TME 10 Software Distribution for AIX, marking the evolution from standalone NetView tools to integrated Tivoli enterprise management.56
Why This Port Matters
Port 731 is a historical artifact. Few organizations still run NetView DM/6000. But the port tells a story about infrastructure evolution.
Every modern deployment tool—every CI/CD pipeline, every package manager, every container orchestration system—is solving the same fundamental problem NetView DM/6000 addressed: how do you reliably distribute software across a network of machines?
The protocols changed. The scale changed. The speed changed. But the question remains the same.
Someone had to build the first systems. This port is what they built.
Security Considerations
Port 731 should not be exposed to the Internet. If you see traffic on this port and you're not running legacy IBM NetView infrastructure, investigate immediately. While the service itself was legitimate enterprise software, any unexpected activity could indicate:
- Misconfigured legacy systems still running
- Port scanning or reconnaissance activity
- Malware using uncommon ports to avoid detection
Modern networks have no reason to have port 731 open unless specifically running archived IBM NetView systems.
Checking What's Listening
To see if anything is listening on port 731 on your system:
Linux/macOS:
Windows:
If you find something listening and don't recognize it, investigate what process owns that connection.
Related Ports
NetView DM/6000 used multiple ports for its operations. Port 731 was specifically the "receive" port for incoming distribution management traffic. The NetView family of products used various other ports for different management functions, though many of those ports have similarly faded into obsolescence as the products evolved or were discontinued.
The Well-Known Range
Port 731 sits in the well-known port range (0-1023), which is assigned and controlled by IANA. Ports in this range were historically reserved for system services and required root/administrator privileges to bind.
Being assigned a well-known port in the 1990s signified that IBM NetView DM/6000 was considered important enterprise infrastructure—significant enough to warrant a permanent, low-numbered port allocation.
That allocation remains to this day, even though the service that used it has largely vanished from active networks.
Frequently Asked Questions
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