diff --git a/doc/html/mpi_guide.shtml b/doc/html/mpi_guide.shtml
index 0793b24e82d5d5404e85b6d9f0c554f1bbbb61cf..51385ef2ac4f8014fb347a5f1079039a7ccc5949 100644
--- a/doc/html/mpi_guide.shtml
+++ b/doc/html/mpi_guide.shtml
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ It relies upon SLURM version 2.0 (or higher) managing
 reservations of communication ports for the Open MPI's use.
 Specify the range of ports to be reserved in the <i>slurm.conf</i> 
 file using the <i>MpiParams</i> parameter.
-For example: <i>MpiParams=ports:12000-12999</i>.
+For example: <i>MpiParams=ports=12000-12999</i>.
 Then launch tasks using the <span class="commandline">srun</span> command 
 plus the option <i>--resv-ports</i>.
 The ports reserved on every allocated node will be identified in an 
diff --git a/doc/man/man5/slurm.conf.5 b/doc/man/man5/slurm.conf.5
index cf6af90133354a190d76562e807ec8f2360cf365..a04d15f7db49057d1f66f7aa889b0cd914138d05 100644
--- a/doc/man/man5/slurm.conf.5
+++ b/doc/man/man5/slurm.conf.5
@@ -654,7 +654,7 @@ LAM MPI and Open MPI).
 \fBMpiParams\fR
 MPI parameters. 
 Used to identify ports used by OpenMPI only and the input format is
-"ports:1000-1234" to identify a range of communcation ports to be used.
+"ports=12000\-12999" to identify a range of communcation ports to be used.
 
 .TP
 \fBOverTimeLimit\fR
diff --git a/src/slurmctld/port_mgr.c b/src/slurmctld/port_mgr.c
index cb228ebfe83920d0618de0fc34a3ed79f4c3a71a..e55dadbcf58af8b605500973717607fed46136e8 100644
--- a/src/slurmctld/port_mgr.c
+++ b/src/slurmctld/port_mgr.c
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ extern int reserve_port_config(char *mpi_params)
 	int i, p_min, p_max;
 
 	if (mpi_params)
-		tmp_p = strstr(mpi_params, "ports:");
+		tmp_p = strstr(mpi_params, "ports=");
 	if (tmp_p == NULL) {
 		if (port_resv_table) {
 			info("Clearing port reservations");