I see alot of servers with port 8080 open. Most times I am able to connect to the proxy server, but the majority are unable to make requests outside the network, or internally.
What is the purpose of having these ports open on servers if they do not serve as proxies?
I come across over 100 per day. All with the same two ports open 8080 and 8443. Rarely do they require authentication.
Are there any other uses for these ports that require them to be open other than serving as a proxy?
152 Answers
Although Google would get these answers quickly, 8080 is officially recognized as HTTP Alternate of 80, essentially the same function. From Wikipedia
HTTP alternate (http_alt)—commonly used for Web proxy and caching server, or for running a Web server as a non-root user
Port 8443 is not official, but is often used as an alternative to 443 (HTTPS) in a similar fashion, and according to Wikipedia is also for
SW Soft Plesk Control Panel, Apache Tomcat SSL, Promise WebPAM SSL, McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO)
With Apache Tomcat SSL being the most likely service in this case.
2As you said, the servers you see with port 8080 may be a open proxy server (not necessary, this port may also be used for HTTP server).
The reason why it is open, is to allow users to connect to the internet through its connection. Some users use this kind of service to break security barriers imposed on the place they are connected (public hotspot/university/company internet) or regional barriers (some internet content is filtered by country for eg.
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