By default, Tomcat is configured to listen on the following port numbers:

• • Tomcat admin port: 8005
  • HTTP/1.1: 8080
  • AJP/1.3: 8009

Of course, most of the time we are only interested in the HTTP port number - which is the port we have to type in the URL to access a deployed application, for example:

http://localhost:8080/MyCoolApp

Eclipse allows us to change these port numbers easily with just a click of mouse. In the Servers view, double click on the server name:

That will open a configuration page for Tomcat as follows:

Notice the port numbers are shown in the table on the right. Click to edit, for example:

That will change port number for HTTP from 8080 to 80. Press Ctrl + S to save the change and restart the server. We can spot the change of port number in the Console view:

Now, with port 80 we can remove the port number in the URL:

http://localhost/MyCoolApp

 

NOTES: Changing the Tomcat’s port numbers in Eclipse does not affect the default Tomcat installation on your computer (outside Eclipse IDE). It is because Eclipse makes a copy of Tomcat configuration in its workspace, by default. If we notice, there is a node called “Servers” in the Project Explorer/Package Explorer view. Expand this node, we will see:

Under the hood, Eclipse updates the server.xml file when we make change to the port numbers, just like the way we change Tomcat’s port numbers in general.

Also read: Change Tomcat port numbers in server.xml file

 

You can also follow this video to modify the HTTP port number of Tomcat in Eclipse:

 

Other Tomcat Tutorials:

• How to deploy a Java web application on Tomcat
• How to Embed Tomcat Server into Java Web Applications
• How to Use Virtual Hosts in Tomcat
• How to set web application context path as server root in Tomcat
• How to configure JNDI DataSource for Database Connection Pooling in Tomcat
• How to configure session timeout in Tomcat
• How to change server location and deploy path for Tomcat in Eclipse