Manually opening TCP ports

[Tony Arnold]

Siraj,

Siraj Shaikh wrote:

> I am just wondering if there is a utility (or any feature in
> ubuntu/Linux) that allows me to manually open a TCP port on a machine.
> I am looking for a way that could either allow me to open ALL or many
> TCP ports on a machine.

I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve here. You can use a firewall
such as firestarter or some such to control which ports are open and
which are not. But opening a port is only useful if you have some
service listening on that port.

> Also, is there any way of running a service on more than a single
> port, or on all or many ports?

That depends on the particular service and if it can be configured that way.

>From a security perspective the aim usually is to keep the number of
open ports to an absolute minimum, so I'm curious as to what you are
trying to do?

Regards,
Tony.
-- 
Tony Arnold, IT Security Coordinator, University of Manchester,
IT Services Division, Kilburn Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.
T: +44 (0)161 275 6093, F: +44 (0)870 136 1004, M: +44 (0)773 330 0039
E: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk, H: http://www.man.ac.uk/Tony.Arnold