Port 3099: CHIPSY Machine Daemon — A Registered Port with a Missing Tenant

Port 3099 sits in the registered port range (1024–49151) and carries an official IANA entry: service name chmd, for the CHIPSY Machine Daemon, over both TCP and UDP.¹

Beyond that, the trail goes cold.

What Is the CHIPSY Machine Daemon?

No one seems to know. The registration exists. The service name exists. But CHIPSY, whatever it was, left no visible footprint — no RFC, no public documentation, no active project, no community discussions. It's one of thousands of ports where a developer or company registered a claim that never became something the world needed to know about.

This happens constantly in the registered port space. IANA accepts registrations based on submissions. The software ships, or it doesn't. It finds users, or it doesn't. But the port number stays assigned, occupying its address in the registry indefinitely.

The Range This Port Belongs To

Registered ports span 1024 to 49151. Unlike the well-known ports below 1024 (which require root/administrator privileges to bind on most operating systems), registered ports can be used by any application. They're a first-come, first-served namespace — IANA records the assignment, but enforcement is minimal.

Port 3099 has been registered but is effectively unclaimed in practice.

Observed Unofficial Uses

One documented overlap: Rainbow Six Vegas uses a broad UDP port range of 3074–3174 for multiplayer traffic, which technically encompasses 3099.² This isn't a deliberate choice for 3099 specifically — it's incidental to the game's wide port range for session traffic.

If you're seeing port 3099 active on a machine, it's almost certainly not the CHIPSY Machine Daemon.

What to Do If You See Port 3099 Active

If something is listening on port 3099 on your system and you didn't put it there, check what it is:

macOS / Linux:

sudo lsof -i :3099

Windows:

netstat -ano | findstr :3099

Then look up the process ID to identify the application. Unexpected open ports deserve scrutiny.

Why Unassigned-in-Practice Ports Matter

The registered port space is enormous — over 48,000 numbers between 1024 and 49151. Many are claimed by software that never went anywhere. Many are used informally by software that never bothered to register. The registry is a map, but the territory does what it wants.

Port 3099 is a small reminder of this: the formal record says CHIPSY Machine Daemon, and the actual Internet says nothing at all.