Port 2871: MSI Select Play — Registered, Forgotten

What This Port Is

Port 2871 sits in the registered port range (1024–49151) and carries an official IANA assignment: msi-selectplay, described as "MSI Select Play," registered for both TCP and UDP.¹

MSI is the well-known Taiwanese manufacturer of gaming hardware — motherboards, GPUs, laptops. What "MSI Select Play" is, or was, is harder to pin down. No active documentation, no product page, no community discussion. The registration lists a contact name (Paul Fonte) and an assignment, but the service itself has left almost no footprint.

It may have been a media or device management utility bundled with MSI hardware at some point. It may be defunct. What's certain is that unless you own MSI hardware running specific software, nothing should be using this port on your machine.

The Registered Port Range

Ports 1024–49151 are registered ports. The idea is that applications needing a stable, well-known port apply to IANA, which records the assignment. This prevents two different services from fighting over the same number — in theory.

In practice, the registered range is enormous (over 48,000 ports), enforcement is nonexistent, and the registry contains plenty of entries like this one: formally assigned, functionally invisible. IANA doesn't verify that registered services are active or even real.

What to Do If You See This Port Active

If something is listening on port 2871 on your system and you didn't expect it, check what it is. On most systems:

macOS / Linux:

sudo lsof -i :2871
# or
sudo ss -tlnp sport = :2871

Windows:

netstat -ano | findstr :2871
# Then look up the PID in Task Manager

If you have MSI hardware and MSI software installed, it may be legitimate. If you don't, investigate further.

Why Ghost Registrations Exist

Port registrations don't expire. A company can register a port for a product, ship that product for two years, discontinue it, and the registration remains — permanently — in the IANA registry. Port 2871 is a small example of this: the registry says it's taken, but functionally it's open space.

This matters because software that wants a stable registered port has 48,000 options to choose from, and many of them are dormant registrations like this one. The system assumes good faith and permanence. Neither assumption always holds.