Port 8080 required by VMware vFabric tc Server Developer

Question

I'm using STS (SpringSource Tool Suite) which comes with VMware vFabric tc Server Developer Edition v2.6. The problem is, every time I start it, it shows the following error:

Port 8080 required by VMware vFabric tc Server Developer Edition v2.6 is already in use. The server may already be running in another process, or a system process may be using the port. To start this server you will need to stop the other process or change the port number(s).

I don't have anything using that port that I know of. It has always worked fine until today.

I've also tried to change the port number but it doesn't accept the changes. If I change it to 8081, for example, and then restart STS it overwrites the port and sets it back to 8080.

Can anyone offer some ideas to fix this?

FYI I'm running STS in VirtualBox.

Thanks!

Answer 1

This applies to the latest STS version - 3.0.0

When you open STS, in the Package Explorer view (on the left), you should see a project folder called Servers.

1. Open Servers > VMware vFabric tc Server Developer Edition v2.7-config > catalina.properties
2. At the bottom of the file, you will see 2 properties defined:
   • bio.http.port
   • bio.https.port
3. Change bio.http.port to some other port than 8080 (e.g. 8081)
4. Change bio.https.port to some other port than 8443 (e.g. 8444)
5. Click 'Save'.

Now, when you do your right-click deploys to the built-in tc Server and start it up, it should run on the new port(s). Good luck!

Answer 2

In the Servers view, double click the server you wish to change the ports on. This brings up the Overview page. Expand the Ports tab and enter your desired port settings. The reason STS uses this configuration page is it allows you to configure a workspace server without altering the configuration in your server installation directory.

Answer 3

Or you might want to directly kill the zombie process still bound to that port with an oneliner:

sudo kill -9 `lsof -ti:8080`