Port 5432 – PostgreSQL Protocol Specification

Technical analysis, security advisories, vulnerability mitigation, and firewall syntax for TCP/UDP port 5432 (PostgreSQL).

Port Number 5432

Transport Protocol TCP

Port Range Type Registered (1024-49151)

Default Status Restricted / LAN

Service Description & Architectural Context

Default database connection port for PostgreSQL object-relational database.

IANA / RFC Designation:

Port 5432 is assigned to PostgreSQL under the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) service name registry. In enterprise infrastructure and homelab setups, services listening on this port must follow the principle of least privilege.

Security Analysis & Attack Surface Assessment

Configure pg_hba.conf to enforce scram-sha-256 password hashing and SSL.

Hardening Recommendations:

Do not expose port 5432 to public WAN interfaces unless authenticated TLS or VPN wrapping is strictly enforced.
Enforce rate-limiting using Fail2ban, CrowdSec, or cloud edge DDoS protection.
Audit active listening sockets locally: ss -tulpn | grep :5432 or netstat -ano | findstr :5432.

Firewall Rule Snippets for Port 5432

UFW (Ubuntu / Debian Linux)

sudo ufw allow 5432/tcp

iptables (Standard Linux Kernel)

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 5432 -j ACCEPT

Windows PowerShell (Defender Advanced Firewall)

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Allow Port 5432" -Direction Inbound -LocalPort 5432 -Protocol TCP -Action Allow

Quick Port Jump

Common Sysadmin Ports

Port 22 SSH Port 80 HTTP Port 443 HTTPS Port 3306 MySQL Port 5432 PgSQL Port 6379 Redis