TCP/IP Mysteries and user support

It's not clear, actually, if this involves a TCP/IP "Mystery". What it may involve is a simple lack of ability to communicate. Or something.

I got this question:

"Request help w/ finding a reference or you can post a blog about how you can you have 2 oracle servers or for that matter any 2 servers listening in on different sockets on the same unix box."

And this background. Such as it is.

"They are going to ask, how can this work? My lame explanation is that on a unix box you can have multiple servers listening in on different ports. I tried Googling around but couldn’t find anything good."

It appears that the DBA provided a TNSNAMES.ORA. And some desktop tool user was not happy with the TNSNAMES.ORA that was provided.

The saga is long and sad.

It amounts to something like this.

DBA: Here's the TNSNAMES.ORA.
User: That didn't work.
DBA: Yes, it did.
User: No, it didn't. You're an idiot.
DBA: I know you are but what am I?

And it devolved from there into a request to help use Google to locate a tutorial on TCP/IP address and port numbers.

I'll repeat that: a request to help use Google.

Apparently, the desktop user had done something in database A and couldn't find the results in database B. And didn't understand what was going on.

And this lead to the DBA asking me to help with Google to prove that the DBA's TNSNAMES.ORA worked.

How does that help the user?