Firewall ports
The App Layering appliance communicates with your hypervisor, provisioning service, and the App Layering agent. This article details the ports that the appliance uses to communicate both internally with other App Layering-related services, and externally with servers, such as NTP servers. Be sure to open the necessary ports in your firewall before you install the App Layering appliance.
During App Layering installation, you open ports that the appliance uses to interact with services on the virtual server where it is hosted. If there is a firewall between the App Layering appliance and the machine on which you are running the App Layering agent or one of the App Layering connectors, you must manually open the port in the firewall used for that purpose. If during installation you changed any of the ports from the default setting, be sure to open the correct port.
The App Layering appliance uses the TCP/IP protocol, and IPv4 is required. There are three main classes of communication:
- Accessing and managing the appliance.
- Talking to other App Layering agent service.
- Talking directly to hypervisors that don’t require the agent.
Note:
The App Layering appliance must be connected to a network file share.
Admin user
By default, App Layering uses the following ports in your firewall for the Admin User to interact with the Management console on the App Layering appliance virtual machine.
App Layering appliance
The connector services for the various hypervisors and provisioning services listed below all run on the App Layering appliance.
| App Layering Destination | Activity | Protocol | Ports |
|---|---|---|---|
| Appliance | Management console | TCP | 80, 443 |
| Legacy Azure connector service | Communication | TCP | 3000 (HTTP), 3500 (HTTPS) |
| BITS Server | Disk upload | TCP | 3015 (HTTP), 3515 (HTTPS) |
| Citrix Provisioning connector service | Communication | TCP | 3009 (HTTP), 3509 (HTTPS) |
| Google connector service - Google Cloud | Communication | TCP | 3016 (HTTP), 3516 (HTTPS) |
| Hyper-V connector service | Communication | TCP | 3012 (HTTP), 3512 (HTTPS) |
Internal connections
By default, the App Layering service uses the following ports in your firewall for internal connections between the appliance and each of its destinations.
In the table, the following shorthand is used:
- Appliance - The App Layering virtual appliance.
- Agent - refers to the App Layering agent.
- Admin user - A management console user who is assigned the App Layering Admin role.
-
Compositing machine - A virtual machine used to create and update layers using the App Layering compositing engine, including:
- Virtual machine created when you use a connector with Offload compositing enabled to create a layer, add a version to a layer, or publish a layered image.
- Virtual machine in which the
ImportOsLayer.ps1script runs to import the OS image as a new OS layer.
| App Layering Source | App Layering Destination | Activity | Protocol | Ports |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agent | Appliance | Initial registration | TCP | 443 |
| Appliance | Agent | Communication | TCP | 8016 |
| Agent | Appliance | Log deliveries from agent | TCP | 8787 |
| Appliance | vCenter, ESXI hosts | Communication with datastore via ESXI host | TCP | 443 |
| Appliance | Active directory | LDAP | TCP | 389, 636 |
| Appliance | Compositing machine | Communication | TCP | 443 |
| Compositing machine | Appliance | Communication | TCP | 443 |
| Compositing machine | Appliance | Layer disk access via iSCSI | TCP | 3260 |
| Admin user | Appliance | Legacy Azure connector communication | TCP | 3000 (HTTP), 3500 (HTTPS) |
| Appliance | Azure | Communication | TCP | 443 |
| Admin user | Appliance | Citrix Provisioning connector communication | TCP | 3009 (HTTP), 3509 (HTTPS) |
| Agent on Citrix Provisioning server | Appliance | Disk download | TCP | 3009 (HTTP), 3509 (HTTPS) |
| Admin user | Appliance | Hyper-V connector communication | TCP | 3012 (HTTP), 3512 (HTTPS) |
| Agent on Hyper-V server | Appliance | Disk download | TCP | 3012 (HTTP), 3512 (HTTPS) |
| Agent on Hyper-V server | Appliance | Disk upload | TCP | 3015 (HTTP), 3515 (HTTPS) |
| Appliance | vSphere | Communication | TCP | 443 |
| Appliance | XenServer | Communication | TCP | 5900 |
| Appliance | Prism | Disk upload | TCP | 2222 |
| Appliance | Prism | Communication | TCP | 9440 |
External connection
By default, use the following port in your firewall for external connections between the App Layering appliance and the destination listed below.
Note:
These URLs are only accessible by the appliance using the credentials defined for it. Attempting to browse these sites results in an error message.
| App Layering Destination | Activity | Protocol | Ports |
|---|---|---|---|
<https://applayeringwebapi.azurewebsites.net> |
API Access | TCP | 443 |
<http://alcdn.citrix.com/> |
Download upgrade media | TCP | 80 |
OS image, a XenServer requirement
| Destination | Activity | Protocol | Ports |
|---|---|---|---|
| XenServer | Communication | TCP | 5900 |
Key ports
Basic appliance management and access (always required)
- HTTP - Port 80
- HTTPS - Port 443
- SSH - Port 22
Servers
- Active Directory server - Port 389 - LDAP protocol
- Active Directory server - Port 636 - LDAPS protocol
- Active Directory server - Port 53 - DNS protocol
- Windows file servers, SMB - Port 445 - SMB protocol
- Network time servers - Port 123 - NTP protocol
- Unix file servers - Port 2049 - NFS protocol
- DHCP server, DHCP - Port 67 - UDP protocol
- App Layering appliance - Port 68 - DHCP protocol
App Layering agent
The agent uses the following ports for communications with itself and the appliance.
-
Appliance to agent server:
- Commands from appliance/SOAP - Port 8016
-
Agent server to appliance:
- Registration - Port 443 HTTPS
- Log export - Port 8787
- Citrix Provisioning disk download - Ports 3009 HTTP, 3509 HTTPS
- Hyper-V disk download - Ports 3012 HTTP, 3512 HTTPS
- Hyper-V disk upload - Ports 3015 HTTP, 3515 HTTPS
Connectors to hypervisors and provisioning services
Connectors on the appliance allow the appliance to communicate directly with the supported hypervisors and provisioning services using the following ports.
- XenServer - Port 5900
- Citrix Provisioning - Port 8016 (App Layering agent)
- Google Cloud - Port 443
- Microsoft Azure management - Port 443
- Microsoft Hyper-V - Port 8016 (App Layering agent)
- Nutanix AHV - Port 2222, 9440
- VMware vSphere - Port 443 (Virtual Center, and ESX hosts for disk transfers)