# WHATPORT(1863)

## NAME

port 1863 — MSNP (MSN Messenger Protocol) — MSN/Windows Live Messenger's chat protocol — the service is dead, but the port number long outlived it.

Protocol: TCP  
IANA registry

## DESCRIPTION

IANA registers 1863 as "msnp" for Microsoft, the notification-server port for MSN Messenger and its successor Windows Live Messenger: clients connected here for sign-in, presence, contact lists, and switchboard sessions. Microsoft never published a specification, and the service was retired worldwide in 2013 in favour of Skype, with the China holdout closing in 2014. What kept 1863 alive afterwards is habit — third-party IM software, bots, and proxies that grew up around MSNP kept using the number, and some unrelated services picked it for being memorable.

## EXPOSURE

**Expose with care.** No legitimate Microsoft service listens here any more, so an open 1863 is some other program that happened to take the port — identify it rather than trusting the name.

## CHECK

```sh
nc -vz -w 3 TARGET 1863
```

## SEE ALSO

- iana — [IANA port registry — 1863 (msnp)](https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml?search=1863) (iana.org)

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HTML: <https://whatport.net/1863/> · JSON: <https://whatport.net/1863.json> · full dataset: <https://whatport.net/ports.json>