Port 3571: MegaRAID's Ghost — Registered, but Nobody's Home

Port 3571 has an official IANA registration — service name megardsvr-port, described as "MegaRAID Server Port." ¹ That much is real.

What's less real: MegaRAID Storage Manager, the software this port was registered for, actually communicates over port 3071, not 3571.² Whether 3571 was a typo that became permanent, an alternate version that never shipped, or a reservation that was simply never used, the registration and the reality diverge. On most networks, this port carries nothing.

The Registered Port Range

Port 3571 sits in the registered port range (1024–49151). This range is where IANA tracks software-specific port assignments — applications can apply to claim a number so they don't collide with each other. It's less strict than the well-known ports (0–1023), which require root/administrator access to bind and carry protocols everyone depends on.

Registered ports don't require elevated privileges to use. Any process can bind to 3571. The registration is just a claim in a ledger, not a lock on the door.

What MegaRAID Actually Does

MegaRAID is LSI Logic's (now Broadcom's) RAID controller platform, used in servers to manage arrays of disks for redundancy and performance. MegaRAID Storage Manager is the software layer — a client-server system where a GUI client talks to an agent running on the server to monitor and configure storage.

That agent-to-client communication runs on port 3071 (UDP), per IBM's own documentation of the product.² Port 3571 appears in the IANA registry. Port 3071 appears in your firewall rules if you actually run this software.

What's Actually on Port 3571 on Your Machine

Almost certainly nothing. But if you want to verify:

macOS / Linux:

sudo lsof -i :3571

Linux (alternative):

ss -tulnp | grep 3571

Windows:

netstat -ano | findstr :3571

If something is listening, lsof or ss will show you the process name and PID. From there, you can identify the application.

Why This Matters

The registered port range contains thousands of entries like this — registrations that predate the software that was supposed to use them, typos that became permanent, products that changed ports between versions, and applications that were abandoned before launch. IANA's registry reflects intent at a point in time, not current usage.

In practice, registered ports without active software are available space. Applications and developers routinely use unregistered ports in this range for local development, internal tooling, and software that simply never applied for a registration. The registry is a directory. It's not a census.