I had been running the inbuilt webserver in Coldfusion 8 for some time now and last night, I decided to change that to use an external webserver. I went ahead and downloaded the latest version of Apache thinking that it must be a really straight forward thing to do. But when I installed it, it wont work. It kept throwing this error on the last step of the installation.
Only one usage of each socket address (protocol / network address/port) is normally pemitted. : make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets availbale, shutting down
Unable to openlogs
Note the errors or messages above, and press the <ESC> key to exit.
I tried to install it several times and even tried to install Apache on port 8080 but everytime the same error came up. After spending about an hour to figure this out, it turns out that Skype was to blame. Skype listens to port 80 alternatively for incoming requests. Not sure the reason for that though. You can find out what programs are listening to what port by running the following command in command prompt.
netstat -anb
So I had to shut down Skype and then Apache installation worked like a charm.
Bottomline :-
- Turn off Skype when you install Apache.
- There is a setting in Skype Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Connection
“Use port 80 and 443 as alternatives for incoming connections” – This is checked by default. You must uncheck this to prevent it from blocking Apache. - If Apache is installed as a Windows service, I assume it would start using the port 80 before Skype gets initiated. So not an issue once its installed.
#1 by Radek on February 6, 2008 - 5:29 pm
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Thats interesting. I couldn’t believe that but it looks like now everyone who has latest Skype installed has web server also! Oh – ok, maybe not web server because when Shype is started nothing happends when trying to run http://localhost/. But why the heck Skype listens on port 80? Is it possible that it is serving some content there?
Now at least I know why my IIS wasn’t starting autmatically sometimes.
Well spotted Anuj.
#2 by Todd Rafferty on February 6, 2008 - 6:27 pm
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@Radek: I don’t know for fact, but just taking a guess. It’s probably port 80 because that’s probably the most well known port that isn’t going to be blocked by a firewall.
#3 by radek on February 6, 2008 - 6:48 pm
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@Todd: yup, I agree but what does it mean in terms of “host” which sends message to my Skype? First it sends it on default Skype port and then if it can’t resends it to port 80 and/or 443? Thats really strange.
#4 by Todd Rafferty on February 6, 2008 - 6:50 pm
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It’s more like, “Oh, my usual port is blocked so… let me try 80 or 443 instead.” Some of the IM clients work that was as well.
#5 by Anuj Gakhar on February 6, 2008 - 8:19 pm
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@Todd, it kinda makes sense after doing some reading why they listen on port 80 but I beleive that should not be the default behaviour. That should be something documented so users can choose to do that if they want to. I am sure so many people must have wasted their time trying to run Apache/IIS on their machine and not knowing that Skype is blocking them. Port 80, 25 etc are all standard ports and should be used for their standard purpose.
#6 by Todd Rafferty on February 6, 2008 - 8:26 pm
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@Anuj, What are Skype’s default ports and do you have anything (Firewall software, port restrictions, etc) blocking them? I agree with you that port 80 & 443 should truly be a last resort for the program.
#7 by Anuj Gakhar on February 6, 2008 - 8:47 pm
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@Todd, Looks like Skype picks a random port to listen to (mine one is 39139) and apart from Windows firewall I dont have any other firewalls.
#8 by Todd Rafferty on February 6, 2008 - 9:27 pm
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Did Windows Firewall ask if you allowed Skype to run on that port? Did you deny it accidentally?
#9 by Anuj Gakhar on February 6, 2008 - 9:37 pm
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Dont remember doing that really. If you Google for this particular problem you will find a lot of people have expereinced this, it seems.