Safe to expose
Port 443 — HTTPS
Encrypted web traffic. Every modern website lives here.
Port
443
Service
HTTPS
Protocol
TCP
Security guidance
Should be open. Keep TLS 1.2/1.3 only and watch the certificate expiry date.
Test port 443 yourself
From your own machine, against any host (swap in your domain):
macOS / Linux — netcat
nc -vz example.com 443
Any OS — nmap
nmap -p 443 example.com
Windows — PowerShell
Test-NetConnection example.com -Port 443
open = a service answered on port 443; closed = the host replied but nothing is listening; filtered = a firewall silently dropped the probe. These test from your network — our port checker tests from the outside, the view that matters for security.
Is port 443 open on your server?
Test it from outside your network — the only view that matters.
Other common ports
20 · FTP data
21 · FTP control
22 · SSH / SFTP
23 · Telnet
25 · SMTP
53 · DNS
80 · HTTP
110 · POP3
123 · NTP
143 · IMAP
161 · SNMP
389 · LDAP
445 · SMB
465 · SMTPS
587 · SMTP submission
993 · IMAPS
995 · POP3S
1433 · Microsoft SQL Server
1521 · Oracle Database
2082 · cPanel
2083 · cPanel (TLS)
3000 · Node.js / dev server
3306 · MySQL / MariaDB
3389 · RDP
5432 · PostgreSQL
5900 · VNC
6379 · Redis
8080 · HTTP alternate
8443 · HTTPS alternate
9200 · Elasticsearch
27017 · MongoDB