Blog

Sometimes we want Apache to listen on a port other than the default 80. To achieve this on a Fedora box, one needs to modify its configuration file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf. Change the port number on the line 'Listen 80' to the number you like. If virtual hosts are used, change the related port number as well, eg. NameVirtualHost *:8000. However, when you restart Apache after configuration changes, you may encounter errors like the following, even if you are root:

Starting httpd: (13)Permission denied: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:8000
(13)Permission denied: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:8000
no listening sockets available, shutting down
Unable to open logs
[FAILED]

This is due to the SELinux policy which prevents Apache from binding to the port you've selected. You can use this shell command to check whether SELinux is in enforcing mode or permissive mode:
cat /selinux/enforce
Output 1 indicates it's in enforcing mode and 0 permissive mode.

To resolve this, you can do either of the following:
1) Switch SELinux to permissive mode
You can do so with the following shell command:
echo 0 > /selinux/enforce
or
setenforce 0
However, this is not recommended due to security concerns.

2) Use a port that Apache can currently bind to
Try the command:
semanage port -l | grep http
This would output something like the following:

http_cache_port_t              tcp      3128, 8080, 8118, 11211, 10001-10010
http_cache_port_t              udp      3130, 11211
http_port_t                    tcp      80, 443, 488, 8008, 8009, 8443
pegasus_http_port_t            tcp      5988
pegasus_https_port_t           tcp      5989

The list of http_port_t shows that Apache can bind to ports 80, 443, 488, 8008, 8009, 8443. So use a port in this list such as 8008.

3) Add a new port to the http_port_t list
You can use the following shell command to add a new port you want to use, say 90
semanage port -a -t http_port_t -p tcp 90

After these changes, restart Apache:
service httpd restart
The previous error should be gone.