Port 1716: Unassigned — Once Home to America's Army

What Range This Port Belongs To

Port 1716 falls in the registered ports range: 1024 through 49151. These ports are not freely grabbable the way ephemeral ports are, and they're not locked down the way well-known ports (0-1023) are. They occupy the middle ground — ports that organizations and developers can formally request from IANA for specific services.

IANA keeps a registry of registered ports precisely so that applications don't accidentally collide. If two applications unknowingly choose the same port, they fight over it. Registration is voluntary, but it's how the port ecosystem maintains order. ¹

Port 1716 itself has no current IANA assignment. It's open territory.

Known Unofficial Uses

America's Army

Port 1716's most notable association is with America's Army, the U.S. Army's free-to-play multiplayer shooter released in 2002. The game was designed partly as a recruitment and public relations tool — let civilians feel what Army training is like, from the safety of their desk chairs.

The game used port 1716 (alongside others) for game state synchronization: player positions, actions, and match data flowing back and forth during online sessions. When the servers were shut down in 2013, the port went quiet with them. ²

xmsg

Older port databases list port 1716 as associated with a service called "xmsg" — a messaging protocol. Details are sparse; it does not appear in the current IANA registry and likely predates modern documentation practices. Treat any "xmsg" reference with skepticism. ³

Microsoft Exchange RPC

Some sources associate port 1716 with Microsoft Exchange Server's Remote Procedure Call (RPC) traffic. Exchange dynamically assigns RPC ports in the registered range, and 1716 may appear in some configurations — but this is incidental, not fixed. If you see it in an Exchange environment, it's probably dynamic RPC, not a deliberate choice. ⁴

How to Check What's Listening

If port 1716 shows up on your system or firewall logs, find out what's actually using it:

On Linux/macOS:

sudo ss -tlnp | grep 1716
# or
sudo lsof -i :1716

On Windows:

netstat -ano | findstr :1716

The process ID from netstat can be matched to a process name in Task Manager or with:

tasklist /fi "PID eq <pid>"

Why Unassigned Ports Matter

Every port that's unassigned is a port that any application can claim — legitimately or otherwise. Malware frequently uses high-numbered registered ports because they're less likely to be blocked by default firewall rules than well-known ports.

If port 1716 is open on a machine that has no reason to be running a game server or messaging service, that's worth investigating. An open port is a question: what answered?