Port 9418 git · TCP

What runs on port 9418

The git:// protocol: anonymous, unauthenticated, unencrypted read access to repositories served by git daemon. Fast and fine for public mirrors, impossible to push to safely, and GitHub stopped serving it in 2022. Most hosting now uses HTTPS and SSH only.

Software that uses it: git daemon · cgit/gitweb setups · kernel.org mirrors

Should port 9418 be open?

Designed to face the internet. This port exists to be reachable from anywhere, so the usual question is not whether to open it but how the service behind it is configured and patched.

• git ls-remote git://host/repo.git is the test; for anything private use ssh:// (22) or https://.

Check port 9418

# on the host: is anything listening, and which process?
ss -ltnp 'sport = :9418'
sudo lsof -i :9418

# from another machine: is it reachable?
nc -zv host 9418
nmap -p 9418 host
curl -v telnet://host:9418      # raw TCP connect test, Ctrl-C to leave

A port that answers from the internet when it should not is the finding; nmap from a machine outside your network (or a VPS) is the honest test, because scans from inside the LAN pass the firewall you are trying to verify.

Allow or block port 9418

# ufw (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo ufw allow from 10.0.0.0/8 to any port 9418 proto tcp
sudo ufw deny 9418/tcp

# nftables
nft add rule inet filter input ip saddr 10.0.0.0/8 tcp dport 9418 accept
nft add rule inet filter input tcp dport 9418 drop

# iptables (legacy)
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 9418 -s 10.0.0.0/8 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 9418 -j DROP

# firewalld
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-rich-rule='rule family=ipv4 source address=10.0.0.0/8 port port=9418 protocol=tcp accept'

Replace 10.0.0.0/8 with the networks that need access. Allowing by source address is the rule that matters; "allow 9418" with no source is just "open".

Putting it behind nginx

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name app.example.com;
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9418;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
    }
}

Then make the application listen on 127.0.0.1:9418 only. Test which location block a request hits with the nginx location tester.

Related ports

• 22 SSH — SSH, SCP, SFTP, git over ssh
• 443 HTTPS — Web over TLS; UDP for HTTP/3 (QUIC)
• 3690 Subversion

Part of the port number reference. Ports are 16-bit numbers; see also the subnet calculator and the packet decoder, which shows ports inside TCP and UDP headers.

Questions