VPN Port

What Does VPN Port Mean?

A VPN port is a networking port that is used within a VPN infrastructure. They are the logical ports that enable VPN traffic to pass in and out of a VPN client or server device.

Techopedia Explains VPN Port

The number and type of VPN ports utilized depends on the protocol used. For example, the PPTP protocol uses TCP port number 1723 to create a connection to IP port 47 Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) for packet encapsulation. Similarly, IPSec-based VPN service that provides a higher level of security utilizes several ports for security, such as IP port numbers 50 and 51 for Encapsulated Security Protocol (ESP) and Authentication Header (AH), respectively. It also utilizes UDP port 500 and 4500 for phase 1 and 2 negotiations.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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