Netstat is your friend
Every now and then, you need to run a server like JBoss, whose services bind to a handful of default ports (1099, 1098, 8080). And occasionally, you get a JVM_Bind error for these ports:
java.net.BindException: Address already in use: JVM_Bind Cause: java.rmi.server.ExportException: Port already in use: 1098;
The first (and more obvious) solution is to check that there isn’t already an instance of JBoss. Once you’ve made sure (by killing all java.exe/javaw.exe processes), how do you find out what program is still listening on a particular port?
Netstat will help you there.
Netstat
Netstat (or equivalent) is a utility available in all major OSs, and allows you to view protocol statistics. You can view incoming and outgoing ports that are in use, along with the IPs and hostnames that the sockets are connected to. In Windows, typing netstat -ab (-a for all connections, -b for the executable involved) in the command prompt results in a list of TCP and UDP sockets and the name of the process that is listening on that socket. Here’s some example output:
TCP MyComputerName:6060 MyComputerName:0 LISTENING 1132 [ibmtcsd.exe] TCP MyComputerName:1026 MyComputerName:0 LISTENING 1508 [UNS.exe] TCP MyComputerName:1141 MyComputerName:0 LISTENING 28668 [googletalkplugin.exe] TCP MyComputerName:5152 MyComputerName:0 LISTENING 1572 [jqs.exe] TCP MyComputerName:5354 MyComputerName:0 LISTENING 896 [mDNSResponder.exe] TCP MyComputerName:27015 MyComputerName:0 LISTENING 12500 [AppleMobileDeviceService.exe] TCP MyComputerName:netbios-ssn MyComputerName:0 LISTENING 4 [System] TCP MyComputerName:1141 localhost:1142 ESTABLISHED 28668 [googletalkplugin.exe] TCP MyComputerName:1142 localhost:1141 ESTABLISHED 29716 [chrome.exe] TCP MyComputerName:1405 localhost:1406 ESTABLISHED 33508 [firefox.exe]
Hope this helps you track down that annoying process that’s keeping JBoss from loading.