Binding on priviledged ports on macOS

Historically, one could not bind on privileged ports (<1024) without using a PriviledgedHelperTool.

Since macOS Mojave, it seems we don't need it anymore. Very good, but is this behavior change official and documented somewhere ?

I haven't found any official information (just this link on news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18302380)

Regards
Answered by DTS Engineer in 662907022

Since macOS Mojave, it seems we don't need it anymore.

That’s correct. iOS never had this restriction and we’ve now lifted it on macOS. Finally! (-:

I think Matt’s right that we never documented this officially. I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about it here on DevForums but I can’t find any reference to that. Regardless, I can assure you that this was an intentional change and we don’t plan to change it back.

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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

For posterity: the behavior seems unchanged on macOS 26.0 Beta (25A5306g). Binding to a specific IP still requires root permissions.

Binding on priviledged ports on macOS
 
 
Q