Limitations of desktop firewalls

If you are running a desktop firewall that blocks access to your systems ports, you might receive warnings or errors when you are starting servers, or the servers might fail to start. To work around the problem, you must give TCP/IP port access to the server process and use a SOAP connection.

Important: Applicable to WebSphere® Application Server traditional
If there is a firewall between the development environment and the server, use the SOAP connector port rather than the RMI (ORB bootstrap port). The SOAP connector port is more firewall compatible. The default setting of the SOAP port is port 8880 and selected when you are working with a remote server. For more information, see Setting the connection to the WebSphere Application Server.
To give TCP/IP port access, add a rule that allows a particular process access to a number or range of ports.
  • For WebSphere Application Server, the Java™ process that is used to start the server can be found at:

    This graphic is a Windows icon. On Windows:x:/runtimes/server_name/java/jre/bin/javaw.exe

    This graphic is a Linux icon. On Linux:x:/runtimes/server_name/java/jre/bin/javaw

    Where x is the installation directory of WebSphere Application Server.
  • For the TCP/IP Monitor, the monitor is started within the development environment process.
  • If you are debugging on the server, a dynamic port number is used by default. If you want to restrict the debugger to use a particular port, you must edit the server and specify a debug port. This is done by using the administrative console by changing the address parameter of the Debug Argument under the Java virtual machine settings. For more information, see the Java virtual machine topic available in the WebSphere Application Server documentation: