Port 1030: BBN IAD — A Ghost Port From Networking's Past

Port 1030 exists in the registered port range (1024–49151), where IANA assigns services upon application. This range is where most application-level networking happens—web services, email proxies, custom databases, and the thousand-and-one things companies build on top of the Internet.

What's Registered Here

Port 1030 is officially assigned to BBN IAD (Bolt, Beranek and Newman Interface Access Device), a bridge/router protocol from the early 1980s designed to create gateways between IP networks, X.25 networks, and asynchronous links.^{1 2}

That's the historical record. That's what IANA says.

In practice? Nobody uses it. BBN IAD is abandoned infrastructure. The last person who thought about this protocol was probably sitting in front of a green terminal three decades ago.

Why This Matters

Port 1030 is a symptom. The Internet's port system still carries these reservations—official assignments for protocols that either:

• Existed briefly and became obsolete (like BBN IAD)
• Were too ambitious and never gained traction
• Belonged to proprietary systems that disappeared

These ghosted reservations are harmless. They don't break anything. But they clutter the registry and document dead dreams. For every port like 443 (HTTPS) or 22 (SSH) that billions of people use daily, there are dozens like 1030 that exist only in RFCs and old networking textbooks.

Checking What Listens

If port 1030 opens on your system, it's almost certainly not BBN IAD. It's either:

• An application using it for dynamic assignment
• Legacy Windows RPC services (port 1030 has been observed as a dynamic RPC port)
• Something misconfigured

To check what's listening:

On macOS/Linux:

lsof -i :1030
netstat -an | grep 1030
ss -ln | grep 1030

On Windows:

netstat -ano | findstr :1030
Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 1030

Check if something recently connected:

tcpdump -i any -n port 1030

The Registered Port Range

The 1024–49151 range exists for a reason: these ports are registered but not reserved. IANA maintains the registry as a courtesy—a public record of "if you need a port for your service, please request one here rather than picking a random number."

Most applications never request a registered port. They just pick something above 1024 and go. Port 1030's official assignment to BBN IAD is historical noise.

But it's important noise. It shows that the Internet remembers things, even things nobody needs anymore. The port system is an archaeological layer, and port 1030 is a shard from an earlier era.

The Honest Truth

Port 1030 matters not because anything important runs there, but because nothing does. It's a name preserved in amber, a reminder that building Internet infrastructure is like building cities: eventually you accumulate landmarks that no longer serve any purpose but that you can't quite bring yourself to erase.