Comments on: Stop Skype before Installing Apache

By: Anuj Gakhar

Anuj Gakhar — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:37:16 +0000

Dont remember doing that really. If you Google for this particular problem you will find a lot of people have expereinced this, it seems.

By: Todd Rafferty

Todd Rafferty — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:27:23 +0000

Did Windows Firewall ask if you allowed Skype to run on that port? Did you deny it accidentally?

By: Anuj Gakhar

Anuj Gakhar — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:47:01 +0000

@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.

By: Todd Rafferty

Todd Rafferty — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:26:14 +0000

@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.

By: Anuj Gakhar

Anuj Gakhar — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:19:33 +0000

@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.

By: Todd Rafferty

Todd Rafferty — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:50:56 +0000

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.

By: radek

radek — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:48:03 +0000

@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.

By: Todd Rafferty

Todd Rafferty — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:27:34 +0000

@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.

By: Radek

Radek — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:29:42 +0000

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.