I’ve written a WCF Service hosted by a Windows Service and it needs to listen on a known TCP/IP port. From what range can I safely allocate a port for use within my organization? That port will be embedded in the config files for the service and the clients that are consuming the service.
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Pick a port number from 49152 through 65535.
IANA publishes a list of currently assigned ports.
http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers
The Dynamic and/or Private Ports are those from 49152 through 65535. This is the range from where you SHOULD pick a port for your in-house applications. Of course any port belonging to one of the unassigned ranges on the published list can be used. But be aware that by picking a port number from those unassigned ranges there is no guarantee whatsoever that the port you choose will not be a reserved port in the future.
And make sure that the port number you pick is configurable as you stated:
This will avoid headaches in case some other 3rd party you-cannot-touch software is using your port number. If that happens you just go ahead and change it on the configuration file and it just works.