Port 4050Cisco Wide Area File Services

Port 4050 is assigned to Cisco WAFS, a legacy system for wide-area file access and caching between managed appliances.

transport: tcp · udp
in transit: cleartext
assignment: official
risk: 2/10
lookups: 0

also known as cisco-wafs, WAFS

Technical Details

what runs on :4050

IANA lists cisco-wafs on both TCP and UDP. The assignment is associated with Cisco Wide Area File Services, a proprietary appliance-based system for wide-area file access; it is not a generic CIFS/SMB or NFS listener. Public details sufficient to specify its handshake, framing, or the roles of TCP versus UDP are not established here, so do not infer those from the port number alone.

Security Information

exposure of :4050

risk score

2/ 10safe

routine exposure. this port is rarely the way in on its own — keep it patched and logged and move on.

file transfer averages 3.5 across 174 ports — this one sits 1.5 below.

in transit

cleartext

credentials and payloads are readable by anyone on path

assignment

official

registered with iana for this service — scanners fingerprint it by number

reachable over

tcp · udp

udp is connectionless — source addresses are trivially spoofed and it is a reflection favourite

security overview

Treat an open 4050 as a service for a managed WAFS environment and restrict it to the required appliance peers; it has no reason to be generally reachable from the internet. The assignment is obscure and is not commonly seen in internet-wide scans. Do not assume the traffic is encrypted, and use normal controls for legacy infrastructure, including limiting access and monitoring unexpected connections.

Record

iana registry entry

port: :4050
service: Cisco Wide Area File Services
transport: TCPUDP
encryption: cleartext
assignment: iana registered
risk: 2/10safe
category: File Transfer Network Services
usage: Cisco WAFS is a legacy WAN file-services and caching system intended to improve access to centrally stored files across slow links. Engineers are most likely to encounter this port on managed WAFS appliance connections, rather than on ordinary internet-facing servers.
lookups: 0rank 993
added: 2026-10-03
updated: 2026-10-03
references: IANA service name registry — port 4050

Something wrong?

This record is maintained by the engineers who use port 4050. Every field on it is editable — change what's wrong, say how you know, and a reviewer publishes it, usually within a minute. Last touched 2026-10-03.

01edit any field on a page of its own
02a model checks it for accuracy and spam
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edit this record →back to the registry

Related Ports

all 174 in file transfer →

the 8 most looked-up other ports in file transfer — 174 ports carry that label.

port	service	proto	category	risk	views
:9080	Groove RPC	TCPUDP	Web Services	caution	70.8k
:17500	Dropbox LAN Sync	TCPUDP	File Transfer	caution	43.7k
:548	Apple Filing Protocol	TCP	File Transfer	caution	36.8k
:7000	Vuze HTTPS Tracker	TCPtls	Security	caution	28.9k
:1337	PowerFolder P2P	TCP	Security	caution	27.1k
:9001	SharePoint Authoring		Web Services	caution	26.3k
:8080	FilePhile Relay	UDP	File Transfer	caution	25.6k
:1337	WASTE Encrypted Sharing	TCP	Security	caution	22.9k

risk mix of the 8 listed

caution100%

1 of 8 encrypted

Port :4050Cisco Wide Area File Services

Technical Details

Security Information

Related Ports

Port 4050Cisco Wide Area File Services