Why does the Data Collector service run on a port not listed in the documentation

Products

• CA Infrastructure Management
• CA Performance Management - Usage and Administration

Issue/Introduction

When running a process listing, the Data Collector Java process shows a port that is not listed in the documentation as the one it is using. 

This was noticed during a security assessment of the environment. 

Why does the Data Collector service run on a port not listed in the documentation? 

Environment

All supported CA Performance Management releases 

Resolution

• The DC uses that UDP port to receive poll responses from devices it sends requests to.
• The DC should only be connecting to the local AMQ service. AMQ should be connecting to the DA's AMQ service.
• All DA to DC communications are via activemq per documented ports.
• All outgoing communications for poll requests are sent to the IP:Port per device based on the port set in the SNMP Profile used by the device. Ensure those ports are not blocked in the outgoing direction.
• All poll responses from the devices will come back to the randomly chosen UDP port set on startup. As a result it doesn't need to allow outgoing requests on the port. 
• We don't have to allow the random port specifically, as long as whatever port initiates the outgoing request is automatically open to receive the response. 
• There is no way to hard code or lock the dcmd service daemon port used on start up.