I'm trying to find a sensible relation between the terms in the title above. I think I've come across some contradictory statements when reading on the topic (Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach). I'd be very grateful for help on rectifying the following statements/conclusions:
A single port number corresponds to a single socket, which corresponds to a single application layer protocol, which corresponds to a single process.
Network applications propagate across several port numbers/ sockets & potentially across several application layer protocols. Why? A network application consists of pairs of processes which send messages to each other over a network, and these are equivalent to port numbers / sockets / protocols. Plural implies there could be several.
Is distinguishing between processes which correspond to port number / socket, and (less significant) processes run by network applications the answer to 2.? By 'distinguishing' I mean as opposed to saying that 'process' is the same thing in every context.
Could I say that port number = socket = application layer protocol = process, and process can consist of many network applications which each have their own processes used for communication between end systems? (by = i mean one-to-one correspondence)
