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node.jsosx-mountain-lion

How to free stuck server ports?

I'm fairly sure that this is a bug in node v0.10.18, but it has created a pollution on my machine which I don't know how to clear.

I have this simple tcp server (coffee) script:

net = require 'net'
server = net.createServer ->
server.listen 'localhost:4545'

when I run it using coffee z.coffee and then press Ctrl+C to interrupt it, I am unable to run it again on the same port due to EADDRINUSE exception. The process repeats on different ports with the same results.

I am aware of other answers about a similar issue, but they aren't able to solve mine because even restarting the machine (osx ml) still leaves the port blocked. Obviously, ps -A | grep node shows nothing as well.

What can I do to free up the stuck ports again?

Edit

Here is an abstract of the comments below. It seems that node uses SO_REUSEADDR be default, so TIME_WAIT should not be the issue, especially since the ports have been stuck for over an hour. Neither netstat nor lsof as root show anything using the ports, and neither multiple reboots, nor killing all but essential programs helped the issue resolve. There is no VPN or firewall.

Solution

  • https://github.com/joyent/node/blob/3d4c663ee68326990e0732a4aa76445688e1064e/lib/net.js#L1159

    You are passing invalid arguments to server.listen. It is interpreting your string as a unix domain socket filesystem path.

    This program works fine and can be killed and restarted immediately. 

    net = require "net"
server = net.createServer ->
  console.log "connection"
server.listen 1337, "127.0.0.1"

    Pass correct arguments to server.listen and all is well.