This post provides guidance on how to reserve a specific port range on CentOS/RHEL systems when these ports are needed for a third party application. For example, one need a port range between “10000 to 15000” to be used by Application A and one need a port range between “20000 to 25000” to be used by Application B. Those ports in between “10000 to 15000 ” and ” 20000 to 25000″ are going to be exclusively reserved for Application A and B.
In CentOS/RHEL operating system side one have to reserve a range of ports needed by the third-party application, and it is important to be aware that the port range will not strictly reserve the port for a any specific application but in the application side is where one has to set the port to be used by that specific application.
To change the port range simply modify the file proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range and change the respective desired values.
1. Check the current port range:
# cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range
For Example:
# cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range 32768 61000
or
# sysctl net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range
For Example:
# sysctl net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 32768 61000
2. Modify the port range with desired values:
# echo 10000 25000 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range
or
# sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range="10000 25000"
3. Modify /etc/sysctl.conf file
Edit the configuration file /etc/sysctl.conf file, to make changes permanently and add the following line:
# vi /etc/sysctl.conf net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 10000 25000
To reserve one or more specific ports out of the port range reserved under ‘ip_local_port_range” for an specific purpose, add the port to the following file:
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_reserved_ports
Notes
ip_local_port_range – 2 INTEGERS
Defines the local port range that is used by TCP and UDP to choose the local port. The first number is the first, the second the last local port number. If possible, it is better these numbers have different parity (one even and one odd values) The default values are 32768 and 60999 respectively.
ip_local_reserved_ports – list of comma separated ranges.
Specify the ports which are reserved for known third-party applications. These ports will not be used by automatic port assignments (e.g. when calling connect() or bind() with port number 0). Explicit port allocation behaviour is unchanged.
The format used for both input and output is a comma separated list of ranges (e.g. “1,2-4,10-10” for ports 1, 2, 3, 4 and 10). Writing to the file will clear all previously reserved ports and update the current list with the one given in the input.
You can reserve ports which are not in the current ip_local_port_range, e.g.:
$ cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range 32000 60999 $ cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_reserved_ports 8080,9148
although this is redundant. However such a setting is useful if later the port range is changed to a value that will include the reserved ports.