Sockets: Discover port availability using Java

Question

How do I programmatically determine the availability of a port in a given machine using Java?

i.e given a port number, determine whether it is already being used or not?.

Answer 1

This is the implementation coming from the Apache camel project:

/**
 * Checks to see if a specific port is available.
 *
 * @param port the port to check for availability
 */
public static boolean available(int port) {
    if (port < MIN_PORT_NUMBER || port > MAX_PORT_NUMBER) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid start port: " + port);
    }

    ServerSocket ss = null;
    DatagramSocket ds = null;
    try {
        ss = new ServerSocket(port);
        ss.setReuseAddress(true);
        ds = new DatagramSocket(port);
        ds.setReuseAddress(true);
        return true;
    } catch (IOException e) {
    } finally {
        if (ds != null) {
            ds.close();
        }

        if (ss != null) {
            try {
                ss.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                /* should not be thrown */
            }
        }
    }

    return false;
}

They are checking the DatagramSocket as well to check if the port is avaliable in UDP and TCP.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

In my case I had to use DatagramSocket class.

boolean isPortOccupied(int port) {
    DatagramSocket sock = null;
    try {
        sock = new DatagramSocket(port);
        sock.close();
        return false;
    } catch (BindException ignored) {
        return true;
    } catch (SocketException ex) {
        System.out.println(ex);
        return true;
    }
}

Don't forget to import first

import java.net.DatagramSocket;
import java.net.BindException;
import java.net.SocketException;

Answer 3

I have Tried something Like this and it worked really fine with me

            Socket Skt;
            String host = "localhost";
            int i = 8983; // port no.

                 try {
                    System.out.println("Looking for "+ i);
                    Skt = new Socket(host, i);
                    System.out.println("There is a Server on port "
                    + i + " of " + host);
                 }
                 catch (UnknownHostException e) {
                    System.out.println("Exception occured"+ e);

                 }
                 catch (IOException e) {
                     System.out.println("port is not used");

                 }

Answer 4

The following solution is inspired by the SocketUtils implementation of Spring-core (Apache license).

Compared to other solutions using Socket(...) it is pretty fast (testing 1000 TCP ports in less than a second):

public static boolean isTcpPortAvailable(int port) {
    try (ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket()) {
        // setReuseAddress(false) is required only on OSX, 
        // otherwise the code will not work correctly on that platform          
        serverSocket.setReuseAddress(false);
        serverSocket.bind(new InetSocketAddress(InetAddress.getByName("localhost"), port), 1);
        return true;
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        return false;
    }
}       

Answer 5

For Java 7 you can use try-with-resource for more compact code:

private static boolean available(int port) {
    try (Socket ignored = new Socket("localhost", port)) {
        return false;
    } catch (IOException ignored) {
        return true;
    }
}

Answer 6

It appears that as of Java 7, David Santamaria's answer doesn't work reliably any more. It looks like you can still reliably use a Socket to test the connection, however.

private static boolean available(int port) {
    System.out.println("--------------Testing port " + port);
    Socket s = null;
    try {
        s = new Socket("localhost", port);

        // If the code makes it this far without an exception it means
        // something is using the port and has responded.
        System.out.println("--------------Port " + port + " is not available");
        return false;
    } catch (IOException e) {
        System.out.println("--------------Port " + port + " is available");
        return true;
    } finally {
        if( s != null){
            try {
                s.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                throw new RuntimeException("You should handle this error." , e);
            }
        }
    }
}