Netstat is a free little tool that comes with a windows operating system and that is also available for Linux and Unix. Netstat shows all open ports on your machine.
You run it by opening your command prompt and typing netstat. Its highly customizable using switches like netstat -a. Its mainly used to get a quick overview on whats happening on your system connection wise.
The introduction to netstat tutorial is a good essay that features all netstat options and explains the output.

Netstat: Quick and useful Linux network information