How is a TCP connection uniquely identified Kill a process that is using a TCP port you need: lsof -n -i :8001 # copy PID kill 43903 A TCP connection is identified by four things: source port source ip dest port dest ip This is why there is no confusion between two requests to a web server on 80 port. Stateful vs. Stateless Firewall This only applies to appliances in between two computers, for example a router using some kind of firewall.