Open port xxx

DaithiSurfer

You know when a help file says that you have to
'Open port 8080'
Can anyone explain what this means and even more importantly.
How do you open the port?
Is this done using your firewall, e.g zonealarm

Sensei

Hi, you open a port so that a program can use it for communication purposes (both communication locally - like a printer port for your local printer, and communication not-so-local) I presume its the second option you want. Is it something to do with a proxy server or something??. Anyway, you don't actually open the port yourself - you usually leave that to the program/app that needs the port open, it normally opens it itself. Opening ports is bad because you are basically opening doors to your system from the outside, only open the ones you need open cause open ports is the first thing people scan for when trying to break into your PC.
As for opening the port - all I can think of is either letting the program do it, or using something like netcat to open it?? I could be way off there though!

Once you get the port open, you could check what programs use what ports with a program like Advanced Administrative Tools.

Also, what you said about zonealarm is along the right lines - you just need to make sure that zonealarm isn't blocking the port that you want open (8080).

P.S. What app/help-file is asking you to have the open port? It's a help knowing.

mneylon

Are you trying to install Tomcat?

It would help if you gave information on the OS you are using