212

Port 212/tcp is registered with IANA under the service name anet, description "ATEXSSTR," with assignee and contact both listed as [Jim_Taylor]. The entry is dual-registered on TCP and UDP — the 212/udp row carries identical service name, description, assignee, and contact fields. The Registration Date, Modification Date, Reference, Service Code, Unauthorized Use Reported, and Assignment Notes columns are all blank in the IANA registry, both in the cached local CSV mirror and on a direct fetch of the live IANA Service Names and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry — no RFC or other IETF document is cited for this entry. No formal protocol specification for "ATEXSSTR" was located. The description string plausibly ties to Atex, a long-running newspaper and newsroom publishing-system vendor whose terminal/server editorial products date back to the 1970s–80s and evolved into later CMS offerings, but no vendor document or protocol spec was found that names port 212 specifically, so that connection is an inference from the description string rather than a confirmed fact. No CVEs, malware associations, or documented internet-scanning campaigns targeting port 212 were found, and it does not appear on general lists of commonly scanned or attacked ports; this reflects an absence of coverage in the sources checked, not a confirmed absence of risk. One secondary AI-generated search summary incorrectly claimed port 212 "is not a registered port with IANA" — this is directly contradicted by the primary-source IANA registry and is disregarded here.

IANA assignment

anet — "ATEXSSTR"; assignee and contact both [Jim_Taylor]; Reference field blank (no RFC cited); dual-registered 212/tcp + 212/udp [Confirmed] — IANA Service Names and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry (https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.txt), corroborated by local cached registry CSV (the IANA Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry, lines 526–527)

Range class

well-known (0–1023)

Registration/modification dates

Unknown — blank in both the cached registry CSV and the live IANA fetch; the IANA port registry does not expose a per-entry "date registered" field in this data source [Confirmed absence, not fabricated] — IANA registry

Prevalence

nmap-services observed open-frequency 212/tcp ≈ 0.000364 — very low (roughly 4 in 10,000 scanned hosts in the nmap-services sample); the dual-registered 212/udp side is comparable at ≈ 0.000329 [Confirmed] — nmap-services dataset

Related ports

none confirmed via research

Primary use

Unknown / unconfirmed — plausibly associated with Atex, a legacy newspaper/newsroom publishing-system vendor, based solely on the "ATEXSSTR" description string; no protocol spec or vendor document naming port 212 was found

Other/unofficial uses

Unknown — no additional deployment information found

Security implications

No CVEs, malware families, or documented scanning/exposure campaigns found for port 212; it does not appear on common top-scanned-port lists

Typically seen on

Unknown — no confirmed modern or historical active deployments identified

Analyst note

a rare, IANA-registered legacy-vendor port with no documented modern usage or security history; treat any observed traffic on 212/tcp as noteworthy given its rarity, pending further evidence.

Port 212/udp is registered with IANA under the service name anet, with the short description "ATEXSSTR" and assignee/contact listed as Jim_Taylor. The entry is dual-registered: 212/tcp carries the identical service name and description with the same assignee, a pattern common among early IANA assignments where a single applicant reserved both transports for one nominal service. Both the Registration Date and Reference fields are blank in the live IANA CSV and TXT registry — this predates the era when IANA began systematically recording registration dates and RFC references for new assignments, so no date or RFC can be honestly reported rather than guessed. No RFC, internet-draft, or other public protocol specification documents what "anet"/ATEXSSTR actually does; the name string plausibly echoes ATEX, a legacy publishing/newspaper-composition systems vendor active in the 1980s–90s, but that connection could not be corroborated against any citable primary source and is therefore not asserted as fact. No current software, vendor documentation, CVE, malware family, or scanning/honeypot report references port 212 in either transport; the only third-party mentions found were port-lookup aggregator sites that simply mirror the bare IANA registry row without adding operational or security context. A single secondary-source claim, surfaced via a Wikipedia port-list summary, that port 212 maps to IPX could not be corroborated against the authoritative IANA registry and was discarded as an unverified artifact rather than reported. Given the total absence of independent usage or threat evidence, an analyst encountering unexpected traffic on 212/udp should treat it as a very low-prevalence, unidentified service rather than assume ATEXSSTR activity.

IANA assignment

service name anet, description "ATEXSSTR", port 212/udp, assignee/contact [Jim_Taylor] [Confirmed] — https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.csv

Dual registration

212/tcp carries the identical service name "anet" and description "ATEXSSTR" under the same assignee [Confirmed] — https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.csv

Registration date

Unknown — blank in the live IANA registry; no date is fabricated [Confirmed (blank field honestly reported)] — https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.csv

IANA reference/RFC

none — Reference field is blank in the registry, so no RFC is cited [Confirmed (blank field honestly reported)] — https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.csv

Range class

well-known (0–1023) [Confirmed]

Common software/current usage

Unknown — no actively maintained software or vendor documentation was found referencing this port today [Unknown]

Primary protocol use

Unknown — no RFC or public specification documents the "anet"/ATEXSSTR protocol beyond the registry's short code; a possible tie to ATEX Media Group legacy publishing systems is name-based inference only and unconfirmed [Unknown]

Security/exposure history

Unknown/none found — no CVE, malware, or scanning-literature association; secondary port-lookup aggregators only mirror the bare IANA row [Unknown]

Discarded claim

a Wikipedia-sourced summary asserting port 212 = IPX could not be corroborated against the authoritative IANA CSV/TXT registry and is not reported as fact [Unknown, discarded]