Programming Tutorials

LifecycleException: service.getName(): "Catalina"; Protocol handler start failed: `java.net.BindException: Permission denied <null>:80

By: Emiley J in JSP Tutorials on 2011-04-06  

Everything is fine. One fine day, you do some changes in your webapp and restart tomcat. Then you get this error. LifecycleException: service.getName(): "Catalina"; Protocol handler start failed: `java.net.BindException: Permission denied <null>:80. What does this mean??? (The complete error is given below for your reference)

This is simply because of some permission issues. In linux, ports 1-1023 are privileged. Only root is allowed to bind to them. But in your startup script for tomcat, you will normally use the tomcat user to start tomcat. That is why you get this error. To resolve this and to start tomcat as root you can do this.

1. Open the file /etc/rc.d/init.d/tomcat6
2. Look for this line # $SU - $TOMCAT_USER -c "${TOMCAT_SCRIPT} start-security" and replace it with $SU - root -c "${TOMCAT_SCRIPT} start-security"
3. Look for this line as well just below the above line. $SU - $TOMCAT_USER -c "${TOMCAT_SCRIPT} start" >> $TOMCAT_LOG 2>&1 and replace it with $SU - root -c "${TOMCAT_SCRIPT} start" >> $TOMCAT_LOG 2>&1
4. Save the file and restart tomcat service

That't it. You're done. what you did is to start tomcat as root user and the root user has the privilege to open port 80. Everything should work now.

java.net.BindException: Permission denied <null>:80
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint.init(JIoEndpoint.java:549)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint.start(JIoEndpoint.java:565)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol.start(Http11Protocol.java:203)
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.Connector.start(Connector.java:1087)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:534)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:710)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:581)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:289)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:414)
Caused by: java.net.BindException: Permission denied
    at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketBind(Native Method)
    at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.bind(PlainSocketImpl.java:365)
    at java.net.ServerSocket.bind(ServerSocket.java:319)
    at java.net.ServerSocket.<init>(ServerSocket.java:185)
    at java.net.ServerSocket.<init>(ServerSocket.java:141)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.DefaultServerSocketFactory.createSocket(DefaultServerSocketFactory.java:50)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint.init(JIoEndpoint.java:538)
    ... 12 more
0:11:56 org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
SEVERE: Catalina.start:
LifecycleException:  service.getName(): "Catalina";  Protocol handler start failed: `java.net.BindException: Permission denied <null>:80
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.Connector.start(Connector.java:1094)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:534)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:710)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:581)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:289)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:414)
0:11:56 org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start`