Port 952 is officially unassigned.1 According to IANA, the authority that manages port numbers, ports 916-952 have no registered service.2 Both TCP and UDP versions of this port exist in the registry, but neither carries an official protocol.
What "Well-Known" Actually Means
Port 952 falls in the well-known ports range (0-1023). This range was designed for system-level services—the fundamental protocols that make the Internet work. SSH lives here (port 22). HTTP lived here before HTTPS took over (port 80). DNS answers queries here (port 53).
But the well-known range contains 1,024 addresses. The Internet doesn't need 1,024 fundamental protocols.
When IANA created this structure in the early days, they reserved the entire range. Better to have too many addresses than too few. Port 952 is one of the extras—set aside for something important that never arrived.
Why Unassigned Ports Matter
Empty ports aren't wasted space. They're possibility.
When someone develops a new protocol, they can request an official port assignment from IANA. The unassigned ports are what's available. Port 953, right next to 952, eventually got assigned to RNDC (the remote name daemon controller for BIND9).2 Port 952 just never got picked.
In practice, any application can listen on port 952. Nothing stops you from running a service there. The "unassigned" status just means there's no official standard—no RFC that says "this port is for this protocol." If you scan a network and find something on port 952, it's custom software, not a recognized service.
Checking What's Listening
To see if anything is using port 952 on your system:
On Linux or macOS:
On Windows:
If nothing returns, the port is closed. If something appears, you've found custom software that chose this empty address.
The Honest Truth About Empty Ports
Most of the unassigned well-known ports will stay empty forever. We're not running out of port numbers. The Internet doesn't need hundreds of new fundamental protocols.
Port 952 exists because the designers of the Internet reserved more space than they'd use—a reasonable decision when you don't know what the future holds. Some of those reserved addresses became critical infrastructure. Most didn't.
This port is one of the ones that didn't. And that's fine. Not every address needs to carry the world.
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