What is the largest TCP/IP network port number allowable for IPv4?

Question

What is the highest port number one can use?

Answer 1

Just a followup to smashery's answer. The ephemeral port range (on Linux at least, and I suspect other Unices as well) is not a fixed. This can be controlled by writing to /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range

The only restriction (as far as IANA is concerned) is that ports below 1024 are designated to be well-known ports. Ports above that are free for use. Often you'll find that ports below 1024 are restricted to superuser access, I believe for this very reason.