question about RIPE DB

Dear all, My name is Nguyen. I'm a newbee trying to deploy a RIPE database. I have a simple question and would be appriciate to hear from you. I've tried to search for the question but still could not find any answer. My questions: What is the purpose of the config port (default is 43002)? When I started the whois_server, it allways listens on this port. Is there any way to disable this or apply a authenticate mechanism on this port ? Thank you very much.