RFC 9900
Updates to NETCONF Transport Port Numbers
RFC 9900: Updates to NETCONF Transport Port Numbers 💖
Author: M. Boucadair (Orange) 🎀 Category: Standards Track ✨ Date: December 2025 📅 ISSN: 2070-1721 🌸 Obsoletes / Updates: the title block doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates 🙈
Abstract 🦋
okay so this doc releases IANA-assigned port numbers for NETCONF-related services that have never actually been used in production networks. they're just sitting there doing nothing, and that's a waste of scarce resources bestie 💅
Status of This Memo 🎀
This is an Internet Standards Track document. 🔥
It's a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 🌈. It represents the consensus of the IETF community, received public review, and was approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). If you want more on Internet Standards, check Section 2 of RFC 7841 🧚.
For the current status, any errata, and how to give feedback, go to https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9900 💜.
Copyright Notice 💅
Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved ✨.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication. Please read these carefully, because they spell out your rights and restrictions with respect to this document 🫶. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions, and they're provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License 📜.
Table of Contents 🗂️
1. Introduction
2. Operational Considerations
3. Security Considerations
4. IANA Considerations
4.1. NETCONF over BEEP Service
4.2. NETCONF over SOAP Service
5. References
5.1. Normative References
5.2. Informative References
Acknowledgments
Author's Address1. Introduction 🌸
The "Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry" [IANA-SERVICE] tracks a bunch of NETCONF-related port and service name assignments. The main ones are 830 for NETCONF over Secure Shell (SSH) [RFC6242], 831 for NETCONF over the Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP) [RFC4744], 832 for NETCONF over the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) [RFC4743], 4334 for NETCONF Call Home [RFC8071], and 6513 for NETCONF over Transport Layer Security (TLS) [RFC7589][NETCONF-over-TLS] 🦋.
BUT here's the tea 🫢: three of these assignments (831, 832, and 833) are for protocols that aren't deployed, and the relevant RFCs ([RFC4743] and [RFC4744]) have been marked Historic 💀. So none of these assignments are needed to support these services anymore.
This document de-assigns those unused port numbers 🧹.
Following Section 8.2 of [RFC6335], this document does not de-assign service names. Only the port numbers get released, so we use the scarce resources better 🍓.
2. Operational Considerations 🧚
There are no known implementations or deployments of protocols that rely on the port numbers released by this document 🙌.
Existing configurations (if any) that associate the released port numbers with the service names "netconf-beep" and "netconfsoaphttp" need to be reassessed and updated according to the actions in Section 4 ✨. Please go check your configs, bestie 👀.
Other than that, this document introduces no new operations or manageability requirements 💖.
3. Security Considerations 🔒
This document does not describe any protocol. As such, it does not introduce any new security vulnerability 🛡️. Yes, that's it. Nothing new to worry about here, but we still take security seriously (even when the answer is "nothing new") 🙈.
4. IANA Considerations 👑
Per this document, IANA has updated the "Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry" [IANA-SERVICE] as described in the following subsections 💅.
De-assigned allocations are marked following Section 8.2 of [RFC6335]. Those actions aren't repeated here 🌈.
4.1. NETCONF over BEEP Service 🦋
OLD:
+==============+=============+===========+=============+===========+
| Service Name | Port Number | Transport | Description | Reference |
| | | Protocol | | |
+==============+=============+===========+=============+===========+
| netconf-beep | 831 | tcp | NETCONF | [RFC4744] |
| | | | over BEEP | |
+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+
| netconf-beep | 831 | udp | NETCONF | [RFC4744] |
| | | | over BEEP | |
+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+Table 1
NEW:
+==============+=============+===========+=============+===========+
| Service Name | Port Number | Transport | Description | Reference |
| | | Protocol | | |
+==============+=============+===========+=============+===========+
| netconf-beep | | | NETCONF | [RFC4744] |
| | | | over BEEP | RFC 9900 |
+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+Table 2
A note has been added to 831 to say that the port number used to be assigned to NETCONF over BEEP, but RFC 9900 released it 🕊️.
4.2. NETCONF over SOAP Service 🌷
OLD:
+=================+========+===========+=============+===========+
| Service Name | Port | Transport | Description | Reference |
| | Number | Protocol | | |
+=================+========+===========+=============+===========+
| netconfsoaphttp | 832 | tcp | NETCONF for | [RFC4743] |
| | | | SOAP over | |
| | | | HTTPS | |
+-----------------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+
| netconfsoaphttp | 832 | udp | NETCONF for | [RFC4743] |
| | | | SOAP over | |
| | | | HTTPS | |
+-----------------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+
| netconfsoapbeep | 833 | tcp | NETCONF for | [RFC4743] |
| | | | SOAP over | |
| | | | BEEP | |
+-----------------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+
| netconfsoapbeep | 833 | udp | NETCONF for | [RFC4743] |
| | | | SOAP over | |
| | | | BEEP | |
+-----------------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+Table 3
NEW:
+=================+========+===========+=============+===========+
| Service Name | Port | Transport | Description | Reference |
| | Number | Protocol | | |
+=================+========+===========+=============+===========+
| netconfsoaphttp | | | NETCONF for | [RFC4743] |
| | | | SOAP over | RFC 9900 |
| | | | HTTPS | |
+-----------------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+
| netconfsoapbeep | | | NETCONF for | [RFC4743] |
| | | | SOAP over | RFC 9900 |
| | | | BEEP | |
+-----------------+--------+-----------+-------------+-----------+Table 4
A note has been added to 832 and 833 to say that those port numbers used to be assigned to NETCONF over SOAP, but RFC 9900 released them 🎉.
5. References 📚
5.1. Normative References 💜
[RFC6335] Cotton, M., Eggert, L., Touch, J., Westerlund, M., and S.
Cheshire, "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
Procedures for the Management of the Service Name and
Transport Protocol Port Number Registry", BCP 165,
RFC 6335, DOI 10.17487/RFC6335, August 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6335>.5.2. Informative References 🌈
[IANA-SERVICE]
IANA, "Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number
Registry", <https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-
names-port-numbers>.
[NETCONF-over-TLS]
Turner, S. and R. Housley, "Updates to Using the NETCONF
Protocol over Transport Layer Security (TLS) with Mutual
X.509 Authentication", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-netconf-over-tls13-04, 18 January 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-netconf-
over-tls13-04>.
[RFC4743] Goddard, T., "Using NETCONF over the Simple Object Access
Protocol (SOAP)", RFC 4743, DOI 10.17487/RFC4743, December
2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4743>.
[RFC4744] Lear, E. and K. Crozier, "Using the NETCONF Protocol over
the Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP)", RFC 4744,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4744, December 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4744>.
[RFC6242] Wasserman, M., "Using the NETCONF Protocol over Secure
Shell (SSH)", RFC 6242, DOI 10.17487/RFC6242, June 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6242>.
[RFC7589] Badra, M., Luchuk, A., and J. Schoenwaelder, "Using the
NETCONF Protocol over Transport Layer Security (TLS) with
Mutual X.509 Authentication", RFC 7589,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7589, June 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7589>.
[RFC8071] Watsen, K., "NETCONF Call Home and RESTCONF Call Home",
RFC 8071, DOI 10.17487/RFC8071, February 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8071>.Acknowledgments 🫶
Thanks to Amanda Baber and Zahed Sarker for the guidance ✨. Thanks to Tom Petch for the comments 💬.
Thanks to Kent Watsen for the Shepherd review, Mahesh Jethanandani for the AD review, Bernie Volz for the INTDIR review, Roni Even for the Gen-ART review, Barry Leiba for the ARTART review, Dhruv Dhody for the OPSDIR review, Michael Tüxen for the TSVART review, and Joe Touch for the port review 🌟.
Thanks to Gorry Fairhurst for the IESG review 👑.
Author's Address 💌
Mohamed Boucadair
Orange
Email: mohamed.boucadair@orange.com📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc9900 2025-12
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