Port 194 (IRC (IANA))

IANA's official IRC port, almost never used; networks use 6667 and 6697.

Well-known (system) port, 0-1023 TCP Voice, video and chat Meant to face the internet

What port 194 is used for

IANA's official IRC port, almost never used; networks use 6667 and 6697.

Meant to face the internet. Needs root to bind on Unix, which is why IRC moved to 6667.

Service nameProtoDescriptionAssigneeReference

irc TCP Internet Relay Chat Protocol Jarkko Oikarinen -

irc UDP Internet Relay Chat Protocol Jarkko Oikarinen -

Linux: is anything listening on TCP 194?

sudo ss -tlnp 'sport = :194'

Linux / macOS: which process owns the port

sudo lsof -nP -i :194

Older Linux / BSD (net-tools)

sudo netstat -tlnp | grep ':194 '

Windows (Command Prompt)

netstat -ano | findstr :194

Windows (PowerShell)

Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 194 -State Listen | Select LocalAddress,OwningProcess

From another machine

nc -vz -w 5 HOST 194

From Windows

Test-NetConnection HOST -Port 194

ufw

sudo ufw allow 194/tcp

iptables

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 194 -j ACCEPT

nftables

sudo nft add rule inet filter input tcp dport 194 accept

Windows Firewall

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'Allow TCP 194' -Direction Inbound -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 194 -Action Allow

All port numbers · Open port checker
Assignment data: IANA port number registry (public domain), retrieved 2026-11-10.