Glossary:SSH Port |
||
Secure Shell (SSH) is a cryptographic protocol that securely transports data over an unsecured network (see RFC 4253). The IANA has assigned port 22 (tcp) as the default port for the Secure Shell protocol. |
Why Port 22?While Secure Shell is not one of the first internet protocol standards it is a rather old one. Today, all port numbers under 100 are assigned to services and most of the priviledged ports are taken as well (see IANA port assignments ).But in 1995 when Tatu Ylonen developed the SSH protocol, there were still gaps in the list of numbers and he found that the slot between the FTP protocol (port 21) and the Telnet protocol (port 23) was not yet taken, so he just applied for it, and the request was granted within 24 hours (these were clearly different times).
Altenative SSH PortsToday it is not unusual to change the port where a server accepts SSH connections.The reasoning behind this is, that because hacking attacks to access computer via SSH are very common, if an attacker does not know on which port the computer accepts Secure Shell connections, they can not attempt to hack it.
Setting Alternate Ports on the ServerTo set a Linux OpenSSH server to a different port, proceed like this:
Connecting to an Alternate SSH PortWhen using the OpenSSH ssh command on Linux, the -p <port> option can be used to specify the port number on the destination server, e.g. ssh joedoes@myserver.somewhere.com -p 64022 Connecting to an Alternate SSH PortOn GUI SSH clients like ZOC Terminal the connection window will have a field named "port" where you can enter the alternate port number. In some cases, you can append the port number to the host name, separated by a colon, e.g. smyserver.somewhere.com:64022 |
||
ZOC Terminal DownloadRead more about our SSH client ZOC, check its feature list, look at our screenshots or start your free 30 days of evaluation today and download ZOC Terminal V8.06.5 now.![]() ![]() |