How To Reconfigure Apache and Control Panel To Listen On Different Port

How to reconfigure apache and control panel to listen on different port? I had this question for months because my portable xampp application do not work well in computer office due to the office proxy blocked it.

After several months I haven't found how to outsmart the apache configuration on the xampp control panel last October I finally managed to install xampp and run Apache on localhost by using the ip address 127.0.0.1. At first I felt frustrated that I couldn't learn more about apache server because the company network bugging me. The installed antivirus and proxies made impossible for me to be free to update posts, both self-hosting (using wordpress) and using blogger.

XAMPP application has long been use as a tool for website developers and website novices to develop their website. I myself have been using XAMPP for a long time to learn to blog using self-hosted WordPress a few years ago.

Since I plan to use the virtual private server service in the future, I will re-download this application that can be used for free on my computer. It turns out that after not using this localhost application for a long time, I just found out that the XAMPP application that I use can be used on flashdisks with a size of 8 Gb or more.

Okay, a little bit of my experience using this web development software from bitnami.

XAMPP have almost everything you need to manage a server. If on blogger we are not given access to tamper with the server and in shared hosting services we get the same server settings for all clients who are in the service package offered, so the solution for more freedom in modifying and optimizing websites is to use a Virtual Private Server.

But of course before jumping right in it would be better if we were more familiar with how to operate it. Apache for example. Many people use open source software to manage this server. At least from my experience studying WordPress management with the help of Google, this software that can be used without paying at all is always mentioned.

So, this is the problem I'm facing.

So when I managed to download and install the XAMPP application to my Sandisk 8GB USB, the first challenge I got was finding a way to activate the Apache application in the Xampp control panel.

In the past, when I used the xampp application to learn to use WordPress, I used my own laptop. Now, since the laptop I'm using has been returned to its owner (borrowed laptop hehehe...) I don't want to use my office computer. When I run the xampp program and start the apache process to manually install wordpress, I get a long error message “…configure Apache and the Control Panel to listen on a different port”. The point that I caught from the error message is that I have to use a different port to run Apache Xampp.

Because I'm really a novice in the server field, even Apache, so I don't use Xampp to learn WordPress. Instead of xamp I use instantwp, a small program that does almost the same thing as xampp.

It's just that this instantwp application has drawbacks. Ie I can't use the woocommerce plugin. So, finally, I satisfied myself by making SEO friendly posts using the Yoast plugin.

Recently I was again curious about how to configure different ports for Apache and the XAMP Control Panel so they can run properly. Using netstat xamp I see that port 80, which is normally used by servers to access a website, is already occupied. This default port will be used by the system. At least that's what he said. Whether my computer system or network system is still unclear.

I also googled using the keyword how to configure Apache and the Control Panel to listen on a different port and it is anchored in the stackoverflow forum. Because I can't access stackoverflow, I use Google Quick Answers.

In a stackoverflow thread https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11294812/how-to-change-xampp-apache-server-port I had to reconfigure the computer ports so they don't overlap. In the snippet of the answer to the problem that I got, I had to change the Main Port of Apache. The way to change it is to change the default port in the xamp control panel from 80 to 8012 or 8013. But the result is that the Apache Xampp application still doesn't run and returns the message Configure Apache and the Control Panel to listen on a different port.

I then tried to dig deeper into changing the localhost port. The way I've never done so far is to change the httpd.conf file. Ordinary people like me certainly never interfere with the inside contents of the configuration file. It's just that after I re-read articles related to Apache reconfiguration and the control panel, I finally got an answer (read: hypothesis). So I duplicated the httpd.conf file to be modified. Just in case if the modifications to the apache configuration file don't go as desired, we can return them to their original state.

Then I saw that there was a command called Listen which contained port 80 (local host's default port). From the readme file httpd.conf, I caught that the Listen command functions to bind Apache to a predetermined ip address/port and because that port is already in use by another system (on the company intranet), I also tried to add the number 1 (one) behind.

So my modification result in httpd.conf file is Listen 801

After saving changes to port 80 earlier. I then pressed the apache start button.

The result is that the apache server running through the xamp control panel can be used. To access localhost I still can't type http://localhost but must use the ip address 127.0.0.1:801. At least I can run apache with a different port.

So, the conclusion:

If you use xampp to learn websites with WordPress on a computer without internet, first change port 80 in the httpd.conf file. After that, you change the Apache Main Port in the Control Panel with the port that was added earlier.