Port 2222

[dbhill]

What is UDP port 2222 and why is my own IP address associated in the firewall log? Should this port be open or closed for normal single user over broadband Internet usage?

Grateful to get educated about this.

~Dennis

[cybergoober]

Are you using Office v.X? When you launch one of the Office apps, it broadcasts over udp (2222, if I'm not mistaken) to make sure no one else on your network is using the same copy of Office. I would say that is normal if you have Office v.X

Hope that helps.

[dbhill]

Ahh, that explains everything. Yup, I'm in OS X with Office-X. I knew that I had seen that port discussed recently, but couldn't remember in what context. Thank you for your insight. As far as being in OS X; since I have been full time in X, it has faded from my memory that there might be other OSes in use. I'll be more specific next time.

~Dennis

[mervTormel]

list of tcp/ip & udp ports...

http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers

this is a 460K large html page

[tji]

After seeing firewall logs about a UDP broadcast on port 2222, I set out to find the perpetrator..

I was a bit surprised to see that the packets were coming from my PowerBook.

WTF was Microsoft thinking? Broadcasting to the network that I'm using Office?? Come on.

I wonder if there is any way to tell Office to stop this behavior, rather than just firewalling it in the OS.

[hayne]

I wonder if there is any way to tell Office to stop this behavior, rather than just firewalling it in the OS.

Yes - I think it's one of the "hidden" preferences in MS Office - called something like "Disable stupid copy protection scheme" perhaps?
Let's have a look:
http://www.thehumorarchives.com/humor/0000690.html
No - I don't see it there - I guess that will be a feature for the next version.

Seriously, firewalling it is the (only) way to go.

[Raven]

Wow... hadn't seen that ms word joke page in a long while... But classics are nice :D

[bobw]

To stop Office from checking;

Create the following AppleScript:
try
set theConfirmation to (do shell script ¬
"/sbin/ipfw add 0 deny tcp from any to any 3464" password ¬
"MyPassword" with administrator privileges)
set theConfirmation to (do shell script ¬
"/sbin/ipfw add 0 deny udp from any to any 2222" password ¬
"MyPassword" with administrator privileges)
on error
beep
end try
Obviously, "MyPassword" has to be your password.

The best uses of the script are:
Make it a compiled script and then run it via Script menu as needed.
Make it a "run only" and "don't show startup screen" script, and then add it to your startup items.

=======================================

You could also install Little Snitch (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17642) - you can use this to stop anything, apps, etc, from calling home.