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# lsof and ss Will Tell You Who Owns That Port
- URL: https://debugly.dev/lsof-and-ss-for-open-sockets/
- Published: 2026-09-11T15:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-17T05:48:53.000Z
- Description: Port in use, connection stuck, file handle exhausted. Three of the most common production questions are answered by two old tools that read the kernel's own…
- Author: Rohit Bhadani
- Tags: Tooling, DevOps, Networking

| Flag | Meaning                 |
| ---- | ----------------------- |
| \-t  | TCP                     |
| \-l  | listening sockets       |
| \-n  | numeric, no resolution  |
| \-p  | show the owning process |

| State      | Read as                                                      |
| ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| ESTAB      | healthy in flight                                            |
| SYN-SENT   | our connect is not being answered, path or peer down         |
| SYN-RECV   | we are trying to accept but the handshake stalls             |
| CLOSE-WAIT | the peer closed, we have not, our code is holding the socket |
| TIME-WAIT  | normal after close, only a problem in huge numbers           |

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