moby: Cannot start containers: port is already allocated

When you run docker ps are there other containers running from other projects?

only what works for me is stop docker daemon, then delete /var/lib/docker/network/files/local-kv.db and after all recreate all containers 😦 .

I just confirmed @andreas4all’s work around works! And it definitely saves me time from having to docker load all of my images again.

#!/bin/bash
docker rm $(docker ps -aq)
sudo rm /var/lib/docker/network/files/local-kv.db

I did these and I got it fixed:

1. docker rm -fv $(docker ps -aq)
2. sudo lsof -i -P -n , find the ID of process using the port.
3. kill -9 PID
4. restart pc. I don’t know why, but without 4, it still doesn’t get fixed.

just restart your docker. That solves the problem.

It’s look like a have same issue.

Stopped and removed containers not freed ports.

I have container with mapped port 8880 - first works. Then I stop and recreate container and port is used (bind for port 0.0.0.0:8880 failed: port is already allocated. If I check netstat, there is no listening port. Then I change port to 8881 and start container - this work’s, but container listen on 8081.

# ps aux | grep 8880
// empty

# ps aux | grep 8881
root      6070  0.0  0.0  51836  3036 ?        Sl   11:08   0:00 /usr/bin/docker-proxy -proto tcp -host-ip 0.0.0.0 -host-port 8881 -container-ip 172.18.0.5 -container-port 80

# iptables -t nat -S | grep 8880
// empty

# iptables -t nat -S | grep 8881
-A DOCKER ! -i br-a6d8851970cb -p tcp -m tcp --dport 8881 -j DNAT --to-destination 172.18.0.5:80

# docker info
Containers: 51
 Running: 45
 Paused: 0
 Stopped: 6
Images: 100
Server Version: 1.12.0
Storage Driver: aufs
 Root Dir: /var/lib/docker/aufs
 Backing Filesystem: extfs
 Dirs: 352
 Dirperm1 Supported: true
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
Plugins:
 Volume: local
 Network: bridge host overlay null
Swarm: inactive
Runtimes: runc
Default Runtime: runc
Security Options: apparmor seccomp
Kernel Version: 4.4.0-31-generic
Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
OSType: linux
Architecture: x86_64
CPUs: 12
Total Memory: 15.67 GiB
Name: ubuntu
ID: V4LJ:2LDK:NTZZ:QOBM:Y6SB:OLSP:QGCC:RUQA:JKTV:WKAG:CHBE:XQ5C
Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
Debug Mode (client): false
Debug Mode (server): false
Registry: https://index.docker.io/v1/
WARNING: No swap limit support
Insecure Registries:
 127.0.0.0/8

# docker --version
Docker version 1.12.0, build 8eab29e

It’s the standard nginx image (:latest), nothing custom. I can’t provide useful info re. the containers as I had to solve this problem. When I ran the container, I explicitely EXPOSEd port 80, and also bound port 80 to the hosts port 80. After I’ve removed the EXPOSE part, everything started to work – I don’t know why.

The same thing happened to me with no containers running. In CoreOS restarting docker service fixes the problem:

sudo systemctl restart docker.service

+1 Bind for 0.0.0.0:3306 failed: port is already allocated

OSX runs with a native Apache service. When I turned that off, this resolved my problem: sudo apachectl stop

I’m facing the same issue during spinning up a new container as:

Bind for 0.0.0.0:6379 failed: port is already allocated

While there is no running or exit docker container instance. Can anyone suggest, what should be the solution? This issue is intermittent which doesn’t happen all the time.

Thanks.

It sounds like you are trying to start a container binding to a port that is already bound to. This is expected to error out.

Please check the output of docker ps -a.

After service docker restart, things back to normal.

I had the same problem and this occurs maybe because you have containers already using this ports, to stop all containers running so far use the following comand docker stop $(docker ps -a -q) or if sudo is required … sudo docker stop $(sudo docker ps -a -q)

+1

ERROR: for mongodb  Cannot start service mongodb: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint stemndocker_mongodb_1 (6bde3e076c954164d75b8d49390dad5427b2bd24b391053845f6e1d74607b903): Bind for 0.0.0.0:27017 failed: port is already allocated

ERROR: for api  Cannot start service api: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint stemndocker_api_1 (57c438dd41a23443e04ec38b4b34fad7664434cf8d69724f85bca3f02f54f46a): Bind for 0.0.0.0:3000 failed: port is already allocated
ERROR: Encountered errors while bringing up the project.

Before running docker-compose up, all containers were removed i.e. started with a clean state.

@hopeseekr Did you stopped the docker first before removing it? Please try the below and it should work:

sudo docker stop $(docker ps -aq) sudo docker rm $(docker ps -aq)

Please attached the log if this doesn’t work.

Thanks.

I’m able to reproduce this consistently:

• Slow spinning disks (no fancy ssd)
• sudo reboot with the container in question set to restart=always

I’ll see the container exits with code 1, I’m unable to restart it due to the port being in use by proc docker-proxy

# output of `sudo netstat -npl | grep 8080`
tcp6       0      0 :::8080                 :::*                    LISTEN      1389/docker-proxy

# output of `sudo docker ps -a | grep 8080`

Yes, you read that right, it’s empty

# output of `sudo strings /var/lib/docker/network/files/local-kv.db | grep 8080`
{"Addr":"172.17.0.2/16","Config":{"MacAddress":null},"ContainerConfig":{"ParentEndpoints":null,"ChildEndpoints":null},"ExternalConnConfig":{"PortBindings":[{"Proto":6,"IP":"","Port":8080,"HostIP":"","HostPort":8080,"HostPortEnd":8080}],"ExposedPorts":[{"Proto":6,"Port":8080},{"Proto":6,"Port":3306}]},"MacAddress":"02:42:ac:11:00:02","PortMapping":[{"Proto":6,"IP":"172.17.0.2","Port":8080,"HostIP":"0.0.0.0","HostPort":8080,"HostPortEnd":8080}],"SrcName":"vethac20767","id":"07a11f64812b570f66ce845aa9595da87be2148b0a5fb9c77dc89d8d6f079249","nid":"170815f03bbd30964559f318b717914135698f238a19b8d683008d0b252fdefc"}
{"anonymous":true,"disableResolution":true,"ep_iface":{"addr":"172.17.0.30/16","dstPrefix":"eth","mac":"02:9f:fb:6a:d7:55","routes":null,"srcName":"vethad9b1e6","v4PoolID":"LocalDefault/172.17.0.0/16","v6PoolID":""},"exposed_ports":[{"Proto":6,"Port":9010}],"generic":{"com.docker.network.endpoint.exposedports":[{"Proto":6,"Port":9010}],"com.docker.network.endpoint.macaddress":"Ap/7atdV","com.docker.network.portmap":[]},"id":"6e8d8aa4379f42ba6a12e8b54a3ff97da5073eac5417e65011c293e75a6f90a7","ingressPorts":[],"joinInfo":{"StaticRoutes":null,"disableGatewayService":false,"gw":"172.17.0.1"},"locator":"","myAliases":[],"name":"r-Prometheus_prometheus-rancher-exporter_1","sandbox":"08325850811f54baa2cb072cde89f29669fbdd4bf80804e377075e1cb7481e13","svcAliases":[],"svcID":"","svcName":"","virtualIP":"\u003cnil\u003e"}docker/network/v1.0/endpoint/170815f03bbd30964559f318b717914135698f238a19b8d683008d0b252fdefc/7684db6d31217abffd2e42e059575ba89e8fb4539a4956e9fc34495e440c80c6/

A reboot almost always fixes the issue, at least in my case. Let me know if logs would be helpful here (and where to find them: ubuntu 16)

Sometimes You only need to write in your terminal: docker restart container-name That´s it!!!

for those errors about port is already allocated:

1.- run docker ps -a 2.- copy the container_id for the process that is running on the port 3.- run docker stop container_id

now run it again and it should work

If anyone’s on Mac and can’t seem to find the file, there’s a “long way around” method you can take.

First, hit screen ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/com.docker.driver.amd64-linux/tty

That should open a LinuxKit module.

Hit cd .., then you can navigate to /var/lib/docker/network/files/ and delete local-kv.db.

May need to restart your computer afterwards.

I have to delete all my containers, all my images, and start from scratch. It is infuriating and time consuming.

Guys,

THERE IS a chance to actually not running anything yet still not being able to start the service at some time if it was already started before. Repeating responsnes like “stop your containers” aren’t helping here anymore - once was enough, maybe this could be a problem for somebody.

And I’m not talking about 80 or other popular port. My application was on hight port, like 4001. No other thing was using that port. Docker like reserved that port for itself (altough it wasn’t visible as listening in the system) [?]. And after stopping container I wasn’t able to start my app again.

I twice-verified that:

• no container is running
• no “native” app is blocking the port (it was “custom”, high port anyway)
• I checked with netstat what’s using my port (nothing)
• restarting PC did not help

I did not try to:

• reset Docker state to factory defaults

But what helped:

• updating Docker version (I had postponed update before)

So please: don’t repeat all the same solutions. It’s not helping. It’s more like flood/spam, making it harder to find useful information in this thread to find out where the problem lies in the Docker itself.

I had the same problem trying to start my MySQL Container on my Mac.

It said I couldnt use 0.0.0.0:3306 because something was using that port.

I tried reseting docker, etc etc and nothing worked.

Then I realized its much simpler… I went to my Systems Preferences and clicked on “MySQL” button that starts and stops your server. I stopped the server and created the container with no problems.

Cheers!

This is great stuff, but for stupid people like me. Just check that you turn off mysql from your host device. I still had MySql running as a service on my Mac.

or change the port in the docker file where you’re configuring the mysql image.

There’s no need to change the dockerfile, just mapping the port when running the image works;

docker run -p 3307:3306 -d mysql

Keep in mind that you should only publish a port if you want the port to be externally accessible. Publishing the port makes it accessible from “outside” the docker host.

If the port only has to be accessible to services/container connecting to the mysql server, just make sure they are connected to the same custom network. No need to “publish” a port then

Thanks @withinboredom for the valuable info and @andreas4all for confirming. Then it looks like the delayed save to store for the driver network endpoints is the culprit in causing this issue.

Will look at the code and see if anything can be done faster, or in a way to be more tolerant to ungraceful shutdowns.

@rutsky I only asked because I stumbled on this issue with a similar error and it was because I had another container on the machine from another project which docker ps revealed (docker-compose did not).

Realise this is an old issue - however is it not the same as what is described here: https://github.com/moby/libnetwork/issues/1790

That issue has 2 open PRs. Any chance the latter can be merged to address this issue? 🙏 https://github.com/moby/libnetwork/pull/1794 https://github.com/moby/libnetwork/pull/1805

Running into this and is a shame to have a fix worked on but not in place.

I was getting the same error tried removing all the docker images and the docker networks still it didn’t work then I tried stopping the docker and then starting it again it worked for me you can do so by systemctl stop docker — to stop the docker systemctl status docker — to see the docker status systemctl start docker — to again start the docker

My main resolution was to restart docker and try again. I found out If I force it to kill all my containers using docker kill $(docker ps -q) (taken from here then this frees the desired port.

I quit Docker, then restarted Docker, and it worked again. Make sure you don’t have another running container or app listening on that port

I think number 4 is needed because the PID becomes zombie 😄. Sadly I can’t restart it if I’m using a shared VPS server.

@cirocosta docker/libnetwork#1504 fixes one bug which yes would cause the problem tracked by this issue, but in a secific case: When the external conenctivity needs to be reprogrammed for the container (see description for more info).

From the reports on this issue I was not able to confirm reporters had a container being connected to multiple bridge networks.

I also having trouble with this. So we don’t have another solutions besides restarting docker services?

This happens to me after restarting my machine and my Postgres container fails to start with docker-compose. Stopping all running containers does not free up the port. A work around I have is to kill the process occupying the port.

sudo lsof -i :5433 COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME docker-pr 3496 root 4u IPv6 43751 0t0 TCP *:5433 (LISTEN) sudo kill 3496

How exactly you solved this I am also facing same issues. @mdtomo

@edisonagamba This issue is about a specific issue when there is no container running on the port but docker-proxy keeps the port open. In that case restart doesn’t help as there is no running container that’s causing the issue!

We had the same issue on CentOS 7.7 with docker 19.03.4. What we did: shutdown server -> boot server -> docker gets automatically started -> several containers “died” due to our RabbitMQ not yet being ready. For any reason they where unable to start after that due to the port being in use. I “fixed” it by restarting docker. I could see that docker-proxy was holding a certain port but only on ipv6 (“tcp6” when doing netstat -tulpn)

This is also a problem in 18.03.1-ce on arm64v8 Linux.

Aug 29 09:04:03 ies06776429 dockerd[7168]: time="2018-08-29T09:04:03.254291019-04:00" level=error msg="fatal task error" error="starting container failed: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint relaxed_hopper.0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc.ffgzh8gm54cb3ms0vkf0cgpy6 (f9a29ea92630c8e18b5133a5462e9484b437ec012453773b3556ccac9fec92cc): Bind for 0.0.0.0:10514 failed: port is already allocated" module=node/agent/taskmanager node.id=0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc service.id=plidh5ek3ijgtz33k3a3jlan3 task.id=ffgzh8gm54cb3ms0vkf0cgpy6
Aug 29 09:04:05 ies06776429 dockerd[7168]: time="2018-08-29T09:04:05.949769269-04:00" level=error msg="fatal task error" error="starting container failed: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint friendly_pare.0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc.2lht7ejifnu39zsbagbnxzzrz (3c52d14c52267a117c1cbf900c05e9b3c058e20deea9453bc58d4a49608f2287): Bind for 0.0.0.0:8123 failed: port is already allocated" module=node/agent/taskmanager node.id=0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc service.id=zhxi5gczhgwykzoi9r4ba22sh task.id=2lht7ejifnu39zsbagbnxzzrz

Containers running as a service under docker swarm are continuously restarting because the port is unavailable:

vsys@ies06776429:~$ docker ps -a | grep -a syslog
7220a128a03e        registry.internal.vsys.io:5000/vsys/ies-syslog-proxy-arm64v8:1.0.3     "/usr/bin/syslog -t …"   4 seconds ago        Created                                          relaxed_hopper.0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc.l2uatjsjtawijh5ptzf0hgyzq
ce5af16ad03d        registry.internal.vsys.io:5000/vsys/ies-syslog-proxy-arm64v8:1.0.3     "/usr/bin/syslog -t …"   About a minute ago   Created                                          relaxed_hopper.0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc.zri7nm8zq9t4i2dzbd55nu4g5
153b4f9353a4        registry.internal.vsys.io:5000/vsys/ies-syslog-proxy-arm64v8:1.0.3     "/usr/bin/syslog -t …"   26 minutes ago       Created                                          relaxed_hopper.0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc.zybw9wdlel3noyo785fz7lk59
vsys@ies06776429:~$ docker ps -a | grep -a syslog
8c038720537e        registry.internal.vsys.io:5000/vsys/ies-syslog-proxy-arm64v8:1.0.3     "/usr/bin/syslog -t …"   Less than a second ago   Created                                          relaxed_hopper.0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc.hev2o0mus9n8g2iwozc855vlg
ce5af16ad03d        registry.internal.vsys.io:5000/vsys/ies-syslog-proxy-arm64v8:1.0.3     "/usr/bin/syslog -t …"   2 minutes ago            Created                                          relaxed_hopper.0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc.zri7nm8zq9t4i2dzbd55nu4g5
153b4f9353a4        registry.internal.vsys.io:5000/vsys/ies-syslog-proxy-arm64v8:1.0.3     "/usr/bin/syslog -t …"   27 minutes ago           Created                                          relaxed_hopper.0cunn4m78963il59gio1m15jc.zybw9wdlel3noyo785fz7lk59

The port is held by a rogue instance of docker-proxy:

vsys@ies06776429:~$ sudo netstat -tulp | grep 10514
tcp6       0      0 [::]:10514              [::]:*                  LISTEN      7585/docker-proxy

@jks3462 That is exactly what I did in the end.

Reloading the daemon seemed to fix this.

But this is a guaranteed downtime.

That’s an interesting work around but a fix would be better.

On Thu, 17 Aug 2017 at 1:22 pm, jks3462 notifications@github.com wrote:

just restart your docker. That solves the problem.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/moby/moby/issues/20486#issuecomment-323042239, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAJUZWbl8bZ3jbXXtxmoAckwGfOXBS8dks5sZCJ6gaJpZM4Hdzzf .

I’m on macOS 10.12.4, and have the same issue:

Error starting userland proxy: Bind for 0.0.0.0:5432 failed: port is already allocated

My Docker version is Docker version 17.03.1-ce, build c6d412e

After restarting Docker from the menu, I got it to work. YMMV.

same ubuntu

I used this command: #!/bin/bash docker rm $(docker ps -aq) sudo rm /var/lib/docker/network/files/local-kv.db

and now while running my docker container I am getting this error: docker: Error response from daemon: failed to update store for object type *libnetwork.endpointCnt: Key not found in store.

I was having this issue with port 5432, upgrading to Version 1.12.3-beta29.3 (13640) fixed this for me.

i just updated to 1.12.1 without knowing about this issue. well i confirm this on archlinux. docker build: 23cf638

Has the same problem as @withinboredom . docker-proxy hangs on 1935 and I can do nothing to free it from it. If I just killing docker-proxy by PID, it does nothing, I anyway see message about port is already allocated. Doing sudo service docker restart revokes docker-proxy on 1935 port. I can’t work in that case. And afraid next production deploy will cause the same problems.

May be there are some ways at least to fix it manually?

UPD: Tried to temporaly change 1935 to 1936, so it said that 80 port is allocated. It seems like it has allocated all ports I need.

I have problem when I have a classic disc in RAID 5 (one was failed, temporary solution), but when I change this disc to SSD (now I have all SSD disc’s in this RAID), everything looks good.

ping @aboch please have a look