How To Change Apache Http & SSL Ports in XAMPP

Tushar Sharma

3 years ago

Why change Apache Port

By Default, Apache runs HTTP on port 80 and SSL on port 443 in XAMPP. Generally, you may need to change the port number for the following reasons :

For customized network design.
For security purposes.
For resolving port conflicts with other applications.

For example, users commonly report a conflict between Skype and Apache both using port 80.

Checking port availability

Before you proceed, you should make sure that you have an available port and that the port you are choosing is free and not already occupied. Here is a list of a couple of tools you can use to find the status of ports on your localhost.

NetStat command on windows

On windows, you can use ‘netstat’ command to list active networks (incoming and outgoing) connections and listening ports. You can use the command with the following switches to print port status for your localhost:

netstat -ano

“a” will display all connections and listening ports.
“o” will show the owning process ID that is related to each of the connections.
“n” will show the addresses and port numbers as numerals.

XAMPP’s in-built NetStat tool

If you prefer, you can use the ‘NetStat’ tool built inside the XAMPP itself. Behind the scene, it probably uses the same windows command and the output is almost the same as the native ‘NetStat’ command in windows.

Windows Resource Monitor

The third option if you prefer is the windows ‘Resource Monitor’. You can launch the ‘Resource Monitor’ via the ‘Task Manager’ as shown in the below screenshot. Once you have launched ‘Resource Monitor’, you can view the port availability status under the ‘Listening Ports’ tab.

Changing Apache HTTP port

Edit the ‘httpd.conf’ file usually located inside “XAMPP\apache\conf\” on windows and make the following changes.