Port 9998 sits in the registered range with an official service name (Distinct32), but its actual history is far more interesting than bureaucratic registration suggests.
What Lives Here
Port 9998 is officially registered for Distinct32, a proprietary protocol about which almost nothing is publicly documented. The name appears in IANA's registry and various port databases, but no RFC defines it, no manual explains it, and no one seems to remember what "Distinct32" was supposed to do.1
What people do remember is The Palace.
The Palace Virtual Reality Chat
In 1995, when the web was still mostly text and grainy images, The Palace offered something genuinely strange: graphical chat rooms where you could wear an avatar face, talk to other people in real-time, and click on "doors" painted into the background to travel between rooms.2
The main server—mansion.thePalace.com—listened on port 9998. So did ports 9999 and 10000, handling the largest user population of any Palace site at its peak.3
Each Palace room was a large backdrop image. Users appeared as small avatar heads floating over the scene. You could customize your avatar, script actions, create props, and build entire virtual spaces. The technology was primitive by modern standards, but in 1995 it felt like the future.
The Peak
The Palace's moment came around 1999-2000. The Sci-Fi Channel ran a Palace called "Mothership." There was a South Park palace. And when nu-metal band Korn hosted their own Palace chat room, downloadable from their official website, thousands of fans showed up wearing custom Korn-themed avatars to talk on port 9998.4
Then the web moved on. Broadband arrived, Flash took over, and eventually social media swallowed everything. The Palace didn't die—there are still Palace servers running—but the crowds left.
What Distinct32 Actually Is
The relationship between "Distinct32" and The Palace is murky. Some port databases list them as the same service. Others treat them separately. The truth seems to be that The Palace used port 9998 unofficially, and at some point "Distinct32" was registered as the formal service name, possibly to legitimize that existing use.5
No technical specification for Distinct32 exists in public records. If the protocol had a purpose beyond The Palace, that purpose has been forgotten.
Security History
Port 9998 has been flagged in security databases because Trojans have used it in the past. This doesn't mean the port itself is dangerous—it means that because 9998 is in the registered range and not widely monitored, malware authors occasionally picked it for command-and-control traffic.6
If you see unexpected traffic on port 9998, investigate it.
The Registered Range
Port 9998 belongs to the registered ports range (1024-49151). These ports are registered with IANA for specific services, but registration doesn't mean exclusive use. Anyone can run anything on port 9998. Registration just means IANA acknowledges a service claimed it first.
The registered range exists between:
- Well-known ports (0-1023): Reserved for fundamental Internet services, require root privileges
- Dynamic/ephemeral ports (49152-65535): Temporary ports assigned by the operating system
Registered ports are meant for applications that need a consistent port number but aren't critical infrastructure. The Palace was exactly that—a specific application that needed users to know where to connect.
How to Check What's Using Port 9998
On Linux or macOS:
On Windows:
These commands show you what process, if any, is listening on or connected to port 9998 on your system.
Why Unassigned Ports Matter
Most ports in the registered range, like 9998, have official service names that nobody uses. Distinct32 is registered. The Palace actually used it. But thousands of other registered ports just sit there, claimed by companies or projects that no longer exist.
This isn't a failure of the system. The port registry is a historical record as much as a technical specification. Port 9998 tells the story of a 1990s chat platform that briefly felt like the future, carried on a protocol whose real name has been lost.
That's what ports are: doors. Some lead to services that run the Internet. Others lead to abandoned rooms where people used to gather. Port 9998 is the second kind—a door to a digital mansion where thousands once talked, and a few still do.
Related Ports
- Port 9999: Also used by The Palace servers for additional connections3
- Port 10000: Third port in The Palace's main server cluster3
- Port 9996: Associated with The Palace in some configurations7
Frequently Asked Questions
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