Port 2612: Unassigned — The Former Home of Q Pasa!

What Range This Port Belongs To

Port 2612 falls in the registered ports range (1024–49151). IANA manages this range and assigns ports to specific services upon application. Unlike the well-known ports (0–1023), registered ports don't require elevated privileges to bind — any user-level process can listen on 2612.

IANA currently lists port 2612 as unassigned on both TCP and UDP.¹ That means no service holds an official claim to it today.

The Q Pasa! History

Port 2612 wasn't always empty. It was used by Q Pasa! — an enterprise middleware management tool from MQSoftware designed to monitor IBM WebSphere MQ messaging infrastructure. Q Pasa! deployed lightweight agents on MQ servers; those agents phoned home to a central management console over port 2612, reporting queue depths, throughput, and performance metrics in real time.

The name, for what it's worth, is Spanish for "What's happening?" — an apt question to ask your message queues.

In 2009, BMC Software acquired MQSoftware and folded Q Pasa! into what became BMC Middleware Management – Performance & Availability (BMM-PA).² The product lives on under that rather less charming name. Port 2612 was never formally registered with IANA for the service, which is why it appears unassigned today despite the historical use.

Security Notes

Port 2612 has appeared in some security databases as occasionally associated with malware activity — which is true of many ports in the registered range, especially those without active, well-known legitimate software listening on them.³ There's nothing specifically dangerous about 2612; it's simply a number that both legitimate tools and malicious software have used at various times.

If port 2612 is open on a system that doesn't run BMC Middleware Management, it warrants investigation.

How to Check What's Listening

To see if anything is bound to port 2612 on your system:

Linux / macOS:

ss -tlnp | grep 2612
# or
lsof -i :2612

Windows:

netstat -ano | findstr :2612

The output will show the process ID (PID) if something is listening. Cross-reference that PID with your process list to identify the software.

Why Unassigned Ports Matter

The registered port range contains 48,128 ports. Roughly a third of them are unassigned — numbers that IANA has neither allocated nor retired. They exist as potential addresses, waiting for a service to claim them.

This matters for two reasons. First, software regularly squats on unassigned ports without going through the IANA registration process — Q Pasa! did exactly this. Second, attackers know that traffic on obscure, unassigned ports is less likely to be scrutinized than traffic on well-known ones. An unassigned port that suddenly starts seeing traffic is worth noticing.

The port system only works because most software respects the registry. When it doesn't, the registry slowly diverges from reality — and port 2612 is a small example of that gap.