Does their exist a function call within linux that will check to see if a port is in use (on the localhost) and return true/false (or something)? I'm setting up a program to bind to no more than 3 ports at a time (lab purpose), but I need to check to see if those ports are in use first before I assign them. Thanks

Something like 'netstat'?

Try filtering the output of

netstat -pantu

Hopefully this will make it a little clearer... I'm trying to write a script/program that will automatically launch kismet using unique ports (say 2510, 2515, 2520...). I would like the script to run through an array (or any other method) of ports that I give it (ie. 2510, 2515, 2520....) and determine if that port is already bound by an application (ie. kismet), if it is "in-use" move onto the next port number, if next one is not bound, lauch kismet.

when one tries to launch kismet twice (default values), it fails on the second attempt because it returns a port in use/not available message.

Well your going to have to parse the output of some command like nmap or netstat either way right?