What Is Port 60870?
Port 60870 has no officially assigned service. It exists in the dynamic port range (49152–65535), which means it belongs to a fundamentally different world than the famous ports like 22, 80, and 443.
The Port Ranges Explained
The port landscape is divided into three regions:
- Well-Known Ports (0–1023): Reserved by IANA for official services. SSH, HTTP, SMTP, and DNS live here.
- Registered Ports (1024–49151): Software vendors can register ports here with IANA. Databases, messaging systems, and specialized applications claim these.
- Dynamic/Ephemeral Ports (49152–65535): Never assigned to anything. These ports are temporary parking spaces for client applications and outbound connections.
Port 60870 sits squarely in the ephemeral zone. Your operating system hands these ports out like temporary receipts—when your browser opens a connection to a server, it gets assigned a port from this range. When the connection closes, the port goes back into the pool.
Does Anyone Use Port 60870?
There's no standard service on port 60870. Your searches will find sparse references—mostly database entries that note the port exists but have no assigned service.
The number itself is a coincidence. IEC 60870 is a protocol standard for electrical power systems (SCADA telecontrol), but it officially runs on TCP port 2404, not 60870. If you see 60870 mentioned in relation to SCADA, it's either a custom deployment or a misunderstanding.
If something is listening on port 60870, it's almost certainly:
- An application that chose this port arbitrarily
- A service running in a specific network that hasn't bothered to register with IANA
- A temporary connection from a client application
How to Check What's Listening on Port 60870
On macOS/Linux:
On Windows:
These commands will tell you if anything is actually using the port on your machine.
Why Unassigned Ports Matter
The existence of 16,384 ports in the dynamic range is crucial to how the Internet works. Without them, every outbound connection would compete for the same small pool of ports, and port exhaustion would be a constant problem. Instead, operating systems can hand out ports from the dynamic range freely, knowing they're never going to collide with an official service.
Port 60870 is part of the Internet's breathing room.
Related Ports
- Port 2404: The actual IEC 60870-5-104 SCADA protocol port (if you're looking for power system telemetry)
- Port 49152: The first port in the dynamic range (rarely used)
- Port 65535: The last port in the dynamic range (the end of the line)
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