Port 1502 is officially assigned to shivadiscovery - the Shiva Discovery Protocol used by Shiva Corporation's LanRover remote access servers.1 It's a time capsule from the 1990s, when "remote access" meant modems and phone lines, not VPNs and broadband.
What This Port Does
The Shiva Discovery Protocol runs on both TCP and UDP port 1502 and was designed to help LanRover devices discover and communicate with each other on networks.2 Specifically, UDP port 1502 was used for managing LanRover remote access servers through firewalls as part of the Shiva Net Manager system.
The protocol allowed network administrators to discover and manage remote access servers on their network - the devices that let traveling workers dial in from hotel rooms to check email and access files on the corporate LAN.
The Story Behind the Port
In 1985, Shiva Corporation was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By 1992, they had introduced the LanRover family of remote access servers - devices that became essential infrastructure for corporations trying to support remote workers in the pre-Internet era.3
This was before VPNs. Before broadband. Before the idea that you could securely access your company's network from anywhere was taken for granted. Remote access meant physical modems, phone lines, and dedicated servers sitting in server rooms waiting for incoming calls.
The LanRover/E PLUS, one of Shiva's flagship products, was a multi-protocol remote access server that supported both integrated and external modems and ISDN terminal adapters. It enabled telecommuters and traveling workers to dial into headquarters LANs and access email, files, databases, and mainframe applications.4
Port 1502 was how these LanRover servers announced themselves and communicated with management software. The discovery protocol made it possible to maintain networks of remote access servers across multiple locations.
Intel acquired Shiva Corporation in 1998, and the LanRover product line gradually faded as VPN technology and broadband Internet made modem-based remote access obsolete.5
What You'll Find on This Port Today
Almost nothing. Shiva LanRover equipment is vintage hardware now - the kind of thing you find on enthusiast vintage computing websites, not in production networks.6
However, you might occasionally see port 1502 referenced in:
- Legacy network documentation from organizations that used LanRover servers in the 1990s
- Firewall logs showing old port assignments that were never cleaned up
- Port scanning results where the scanner's database still lists the official IANA assignment
Some sources mention Citrix ICA (Independent Computing Architecture) using port 1502, but this appears to be an unofficial or alternative use - the official IANA assignment remains "shivadiscovery."7
Checking What's Listening
On Linux or macOS:
On Windows:
If you find something listening on port 1502 in a modern network, it's worth investigating - it's unlikely to be legitimate Shiva equipment.
Why This Port Matters
Port 1502 represents a specific moment in networking history: when corporations were figuring out how to extend their LANs beyond the office walls. The problems Shiva was solving - secure remote authentication, protocol translation, centralized management of access points - are still problems we solve today. We just solve them differently.
The registered port remains in the IANA database as a historical marker. Every time someone looks up port 1502, they're encountering the fossil record of 1990s networking - back when a "remote access server" meant a box full of modems waiting for phone calls, not a VPN endpoint waiting for TLS connections.
The technology is obsolete. The port assignment persists. And somewhere, in a dusty server closet no one's opened in 20 years, there might still be a LanRover blinking its lights, waiting for a dial-in connection that will never come.
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