Port 308: Novastor Backup — Where Enterprise Data Goes to Sleep

Port 308 is assigned to novastorbakcup, the network protocol for NovaStor's backup and recovery software. Both TCP and UDP use this port for backup operations that have been protecting data for businesses, hospitals, schools, and government agencies since the late 1980s.¹²

What Runs Here

NovaStor is a commercial backup solution that handles everything from individual workstations to enterprise-wide data protection. Port 308 serves as the control channel for NovaStor's backup operations, working alongside port 309 to coordinate backup jobs, manage restore operations, and maintain communication between backup clients and servers.³

The protocol handles the kind of backup traffic that companies depend on but rarely think about—until disaster strikes. Every scheduled backup, every restore operation, every verification that yesterday's data is actually safe: port 308.

The Well-Known Port Problem

Port 308 sits in the System Ports range (0-1023), the most restricted section of the port number space. These ports require "IETF Review" or "IESG Approval" to obtain—the Internet Engineering Task Force has to actually review and approve your application.⁴

This is not a rubber-stamp process. The well-known range is both the smallest and most densely assigned range. Getting approval means convincing the IETF that your protocol deserves one of these precious low-numbered ports. Most applications don't qualify and are relegated to the User Ports range (1024-49151) instead.

Someone at NovaStor went through this process and succeeded. That port 308 exists in this range means it passed through layers of technical review.

The Company Behind the Port

NovaStor was founded in 1987 in Agoura Hills, California. For its first ten years, the company resold drives and software. Then they identified limitations in the backup market and built their own solution—NovaBACKUP for DOS.⁵

The company survived the shift from DOS to Windows, from tape to disk, from local to cloud, from small business to enterprise. In 2009, a management-led investor group bought the company. It remains privately held, with offices in California, Hamburg, and Zug.⁵

Backup software is unglamorous work. It runs at night. It consumes bandwidth. It costs money. Nobody celebrates when it works, but everyone notices when it fails. NovaStor has been doing this work for nearly four decades.

Security Considerations

Port 308 should only be open on networks where NovaStor backup infrastructure is actively deployed. If you see unexpected traffic on this port and don't run NovaStor software, investigate immediately.

Like many backup protocols, port 308 traffic needs to traverse firewalls to communicate between backup servers and clients. NovaStor documentation specifies that ports 308 and 309 must be open in both directions for proper operation.³ This creates potential attack surface that should be carefully controlled with firewall rules limiting traffic to known backup infrastructure.

Standard security practices apply: restrict access by IP address, monitor for unusual traffic patterns, ensure backup credentials are properly secured, and regularly audit which systems have access to backup infrastructure.

How to Check This Port

See what's listening on port 308:

# Linux/Mac
sudo lsof -i :308
sudo netstat -tlnp | grep :308

# Windows
netstat -ano | findstr :308

# Check if something is listening
nmap -p 308 localhost

If NovaStor backup software is running, you'll see its process bound to this port. If you see activity and don't recognize it, investigate.

Related Ports

• Port 309 — NovaStor's companion port, also required for full backup operations³
• Port 10000 — Bacula backup system
• Port 9103 — Bacula file daemon

These ports share the same mission: protecting data by moving it safely from production systems to backup storage, usually while everyone else is asleep.