Port 465 — SMTPS

TCP well-known

What runs on port 465

Mail submission over implicit TLS.

Security considerations

Deprecated, then un-deprecated. Port 587 with STARTTLS is the more widely supported choice.

Checking whether something is listening

# Linux / macOS — what is bound to the port
sudo lsof -i :465
sudo ss -lntp | grep :465

# Windows
netstat -ano | findstr :465
Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 465

# is it reachable from outside?
nc -zv example.com 465
curl -v telnet://example.com:465

Freeing the port

# find the process, then stop it
sudo lsof -ti :465 | xargs kill        # Linux / macOS
netstat -ano | findstr :465            # note the PID, then:
taskkill /PID <pid> /F                    # Windows

Should this port be open to the internet?

Only on a mail server. If this port is open on something that is not intentionally handling mail, you may be running an open relay — which will get the IP blacklisted quickly.

Quick reference

Frequently asked questions

Other common ports

• Port 20 — FTP data
• Port 21 — FTP control
• Port 22 — SSH / SFTP
• Port 23 — Telnet
• Port 25 — SMTP
• Port 53 — DNS
• Port 67 — DHCP server
• Port 68 — DHCP client
• Port 69 — TFTP
• Port 80 — HTTP
• Port 110 — POP3
• Port 123 — NTP
• Port 143 — IMAP
• Port 161 — SNMP
• Port 389 — LDAP
• Port 443 — HTTPS
• Port 445 — SMB
• Port 514 — Syslog

All port numbers