494

Port 494/tcp is registered to POV-Ray (Persistence of Vision Raytracer), an open-source 3D ray-tracing rendering engine, for its historical networked-rendering functionality; it has no documented reason to be exposed to the public internet and should stay confined to a private render-farm network, if it is used at all.

IANA lists 494/tcp under the service name pov-ray, description "POV-Ray," with assignee/contact recorded only as "[POV_Team_Co_ordinato]" (POV Team Co-ordinator) and a blank Reference field. The same name is dual-registered on 494/udp with an identical description.

No RFC or protocol specification document is cited for this registration. POV-Ray historically supported networked "trace server" / render-farm style connections for distributing rendering work across machines, which is the presumed reason a port was registered, but the IANA record itself carries no protocol detail confirming that link.

No independent community sighting — vendor docs, blog posts, or forum threads — of any software other than POV-Ray itself using 494/tcp was found in an August 2026 search. Aggregator port-list sites either mirror the bare IANA entry or record no observed traffic for this port.

Corpus prevalence data (this site's own tooling, built from nmap-services) records an open-frequency of 0 for 494/tcp and 0.000478 for 494/udp — the TCP figure is a real sampled reading, not an absence of data, and is consistent with a port essentially never seen open in scans.

IANA assignment

pov-ray — "POV-Ray"; reference (blank — no RFC cited); assignee/contact "[POV_Team_Co_ordinato]" (POV Team Co-ordinator); dual-registered 494/tcp + 494/udp [Confirmed] — the IANA Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry pov-ray 494/tcp

Range class

well-known (0–1023), IANA range category "system" [Confirmed] — this site's own tooling

Prevalence

nmap-services open-frequency 494/tcp = 0 (sampled, not observed open); 494/udp = 0.000478 [Confirmed] — this site's own tooling

Related ports

494/udp (same IANA registration)

Primary use

registered to POV-Ray (open-source 3D ray-tracing renderer); presumed tied to historical networked "trace server" / render-farm connections, but no RFC or protocol document confirms behavior

Other/unofficial uses

none documented; no independent sighting of other software using this port found as of an August 2026 search [Unknown]

Security implications

no CVE recorded in the NVD as of an August 2026 search; malware/trojan association Unknown (source page unreachable, HTTP 403)

Typically seen on

no confirmed typical deployment beyond the POV-Ray registration itself; treat an open instance as worth investigating [Unknown]

Analyst note

A responsive 494/tcp ties only to an obscure, largely unverified POV-Ray networked-rendering registration; there is no basis to treat it as a routine public-facing service.

Port 494/udp is registered to pov-ray (POV-Ray, the Persistence of Vision Raytracer); no documented network protocol has been confirmed for it, so it should not be exposed to the public internet and any open instance warrants investigation rather than assumption of normal use.

IANA lists 494/udp (and 494/tcp) as assigned to service name pov-ray, description "POV-Ray," assignee POV-Team Co-ordinator, with a blank Reference field — no RFC or other formal specification backs the assignment.

POV-Ray itself is an open-source desktop ray-tracing/3D-rendering program. The IANA record does not describe what, if anything, POV-Ray actually sends over this port, and a search of POV-Ray's own documentation for its distributed/network-rendering add-ons (SMPOV, HTTPov, IMPFarm) did not turn up any mention of port 494 specifically.

No community-sourced sighting — vendor doc, blog post, or forum thread — of an application generating traffic on 494/udp was found as of an August 2026 search. The nmap-services corpus records the port as sampled but almost never observed open, consistent with a registration that saw little or no real-world network deployment.

IANA assignment

pov-ray — "POV-Ray"; reference (blank — no RFC cited); assignee POV_Team_Co_ordinato; dual-registered 494/tcp + 494/udp [Confirmed] — the IANA Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry pov-ray 494/udp

Range class

well-known / system (0–1023) [Confirmed] — the IANA Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry pov-ray 494/udp

Prevalence

nmap-services open-frequency 494/udp = 0.000478 (~0.048%); 494/tcp measured 0 (sampled, not observed open) [Confirmed] — this site's own tooling

Related ports

none confirmed as directly related; no other rendering-coordination ports were surfaced in this research pass [Unknown]

Primary use

registered to POV-Ray (open-source ray-tracing/3D-rendering software); the actual on-the-wire protocol used on this port is undocumented by IANA or by POV-Ray's own project docs

Other/unofficial uses

none found; POV-Ray's documented network-rendering add-ons (SMPOV, HTTPov, IMPFarm) do not reference port 494

Security implications

no CVE, malware, or scanning-campaign association found as of an August 2026 search; near-zero deployment means an open instance is unusual and worth investigating

Typically seen on

hosts running POV-Ray, if any network-rendering configuration is deployed; otherwise unexpected/anomalous [Unknown]

Analyst note

An open port 494/udp lacks any confirmed legitimate traffic pattern in available sources — treat it as low-prevalence and worth checking against the host's actual software inventory before assuming benign POV-Ray use.