I couldn't find anything much about this, but I'm interested what are pros and cons (if any) in using /etc/services for in-house software? On my Linux distro (Ubuntu 14.04) at the end of /etc/services is a comment: # Local services hinting that it could be a good thing to do. One thing that comes to mind is that having in-house ports in /etc/services would make serv database a reference point for common knowledge and much better source of default ports for applications throughout the system.