On Nov 8, 2004, at 10:07 PM, Chris Laws wrote:

I would like to specify my client ports for the previously mentioned reasons. We also use integration tools such as LAN message crackers to help us verify message contents. These use information such as "port" to determine the appropriate cracking method.

If I let the OS determine the client's ports I will have to change the port information in our LAN message cracker everytime I restart the client application. Admittedly this will only be necessary during the integration phase, however I'm sure I'd get tired of manually changing port numbers in our cracker tool after a very short time.

From what I can tell, your aforementioned reasons are due to a misunderstanding, not an actual need. Your use cases do not appear to be any different from usual networking clients, none of which use fixed client ports. Using a fixed client port for a TCP connection is almost always a very very bad idea. Additionally, the "LAN message cracker" should be, and probably is using the server port to filter on, not the client port. James