This page last changed on Jul 10, 2009 by aatkins.

Problem

This page tells you what to do if you get errors like the following when starting Confluence Standalone, and can't access Confluence on port 8080.

java.net.BindException: Address already in use: JVM_Bind:8080

This means you are running other software on Tomcat's default port 8080. This may either be another Tomcat or some other process. It may also be a previous instance of Confluence that hasn't been shut down cleanly.

To find out what process is listening on that port, load a command prompt and type: netstat -an

 -a : Displays all active TCP connections and the TCP and UDP ports on which the computer is listening.
 -n : Displays active TCP connections, however, addresses and port numbers are expressed numerically and no attempt is made to determine names.

There is also Process Explorer tool available to determine what is binding port 8080.

Solution: Change the Ports which Confluence Listens On

To change the ports for Confluence Standalone, open the file conf/server.xml under your Confluence Installation directory. The first four lines of the file look like this:

Default conf/server.xml
<Server port="8000" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0">
    <Service name="Tomcat-Standalone">
        <Connector className="org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteConnector" port="8080" minProcessors="5" maxProcessors="75"
            enableLookups="true" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="10" debug="0" connectionTimeout="20000" useURIValidationHack="false"/>
        ...

You need to modify both the server port (default is 8000) and the connector port (default is 8080) to ports that are free on your machine.
Hint: You can use netstat to identify free ports on your machine. See more information on using netstat on Windows or on Linux.

For example, here are the first four lines of a modified server.xml file, using ports '8015' and '8090':

Modified conf/server.xml using ports 8015 and 8090
<Server port="8015" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0">
    <Service name="Tomcat-Standalone">
        <Connector className="org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteConnector" port="8090" minProcessors="5" maxProcessors="75"
            enableLookups="true" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="10" debug="0" connectionTimeout="20000" useURIValidationHack="false"/>
        ...

To access Confluence in this configuration, point your web browser to http://localhost:8090/.

NOTES

[1] For more information on netstat, see using netstat on Windows, or netstat man page (Linux).

[2] JIRA Standalone also runs on port 8080 by default. If you're looking to change the port of JIRA Standalone, see Changing JIRA Standalone's port.

RELATED PAGES

Installing Confluence Standalone Using the Automatic Installer
Running Tomcat on a Different Port
Documentation Home

Document generated by Confluence on Nov 05, 2009 23:27