What This Port Is
Port 1014 sits in the well-known range (0-1023), which means it was ostensibly assigned for something by IANA. But here's the thing: almost nobody documents what that something is anymore.
The port falls into that awkward zone where it exists officially but carries almost no actual traffic. Check port databases and you'll find contradictions: some say it's tied to macOS NetInfo (a deprecated directory service), others say it's undocumented, and most just skip past it entirely.
The Well-Known Range (0-1023)
The well-known ports are supposed to be special. They're reserved, officially assigned, require superuser/administrator privileges to bind on most systems. The first 1,024 port numbers are supposed to mean something.
Port 1014 proves that assumption wrong. It's been officially reserved but never really activated, at least not in any widespread way. It's the regulatory equivalent of a street sign pointing to a road that was never built.
What Actually Uses Port 1014 (If Anything)
Possible: macOS NetInfo RPC — Some older documentation mentions port 1014 in connection with macOS NetInfo, an RPC-based directory service that macOS has used for managing network configuration and user information. NetInfo was used in older versions of the OS but was deprecated and replaced by Open Directory. If something is listening on 1014, it's almost certainly a legacy system.
Likely: Nothing — On most modern systems, port 1014 is simply not in use. It exists in the registry but has no active service behind it. It's a placeholder more than a port.
How to Check What's Listening
If you're curious whether something's actually using port 1014 on your machine:
On Linux/macOS:
On Windows:
If you get no output, congratulations: port 1014 is doing nothing on your system, like it does on most systems.
Why Forgotten Ports Matter
Port 1014 is a small example of the infrastructure bloat that accumulates in network systems. The well-known port range had to include 1,024 entries. Not all of them would be equally useful. Not all of them would be equally remembered.
Some ports carry the entire weight of the Internet—22 (SSH), 443 (HTTPS), 25 (SMTP). Others, like 1014, become footnotes. They exist because the system requires 1,024 slots to be defined, and someone, somewhere, assigned something to this slot decades ago.
The real value isn't in port 1014 itself. It's in understanding that the well-known range contains layers of history, abandoned services, and infrastructure decisions that no longer make sense. Some ports stay in the registry because removing them might break something in some legacy system that nobody's checked on in fifteen years.
Port 1014 is what that looks like.
Was this page helpful?