888

Port 888 has a notable dual character in the live IANA registry (verified against the canonical CSV): the formal assignment is accessbuilder with the description "AccessBuilder," assignee Steve Sweeney, blank reference, on both TCP and UDP, while the registry separately records cddbp on 888/tcp with the description "CD Database Protocol," assignee Steve Scherf, and the explicit assignment note "This entry records an unassigned but widespread use" — so CDDB is documented by IANA itself as a de-facto use of 888/tcp, distinct from the AccessBuilder assignment, with no UDP cddbp row. AccessBuilder was 3Com's 1990s remote-access and dial-in server product family providing dial-up and LAN remote access; 3Com merged with U.S. Robotics in 1997 and was acquired by HP in 2010, and the product line is long obsolete. The de-facto cddbp use is the CD Database Protocol, by which CD-player and ripper software looked up album and track metadata by computing a disc ID from the CD's table of contents: CDDB was created by Ti Kan in late 1993 and Steve Scherf, commercialized as CDDB Inc. and renamed Gracenote in 2000; in March 2001 Gracenote restricted CDDB1 access and pushed the proprietary CDDB2, prompting the open-source freedb fork, and native CDDBP defaults to TCP 888 while an HTTP mode uses port 80. freedb.org went offline in 2020, with gnudb.org continuing the dataset. The IANA reference field is blank for both rows. Security-wise neither use carries a modern protocol security profile; SpeedGuide notes historical trojan flags against 888, which should be treated only as threat-reported. For an analyst, an open 888 is most likely legacy AccessBuilder hardware, a CDDB/freedb-style metadata server, or a custom application; nmap-services lists 888/tcp at roughly 0.000928 — occasional, and higher than its neighbors largely because of the CDDB history (nmap labels the port "cddbp").

IANA assignment

accessbuilder — "AccessBuilder" (assignee Steve Sweeney), blank reference, 888/tcp + 888/udp; the registry ALSO records de-facto cddbp on 888/tcp — "CD Database Protocol" (assignee Steve Scherf), note "This entry records an unassigned but widespread use" [IANA-assigned + IANA-documented de-facto, verified live] — IANA Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry

Range class

well-known (0–1023)

Prevalence

occasional; nmap-services 888/tcp ~0.000928 (de-facto, elevated by CDDB history) [Well-established] — nmap-services file

Related ports

8880 (cddbp-alt); port 80 (CDDB over HTTP)

Primary use

registered 3Com AccessBuilder remote-access product

Other/unofficial uses

cddbp / CDDB (later freedb) CD-metadata lookup — IANA-documented de-facto on 888/tcp

Security implications

no modern protocol security profile; historical trojan flags

Typically seen on

legacy 3Com AccessBuilder hardware; CDDB/freedb-style metadata servers

Analyst note

An open 888 is most likely legacy AccessBuilder, a CDDB/freedb metadata server, or a custom app — identify the actual service; the elevated scan frequency reflects CDDB history.