How to Kill Port 8080 on Linux

Quick fix: portrm

$ ptrm fix 8080
  Port 8080 in use
  java (PID 19432) - Spring Boot
  SAFE - development server
  Killed PID 19432. Port 8080 is free.

Install: npm install -g portrm or curl -fsSL https://portrm.dev/install.sh | sh

Method 1: ss (socket statistics)

ss is the modern replacement for netstat, pre-installed on all modern Linux distributions:

$ ss -tlnp | grep :8080
LISTEN  0  100  *:8080  *:*  users:(("java",pid=19432,fd=56))

$ kill -9 19432

Method 2: fuser (one-liner)

fuser is the simplest way. The -k flag kills the process automatically:

# Find and kill in one command
$ fuser -k 8080/tcp
8080/tcp:  19432

# Just find (without killing)
$ fuser 8080/tcp
8080/tcp:  19432

If fuser is not installed: sudo apt install psmisc (Ubuntu/Debian) or sudo dnf install psmisc (Fedora).

Method 3: lsof

$ lsof -i :8080
COMMAND  PID USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
java   19432 dev    56u  IPv6 0x...  0t0      TCP *:http-alt (LISTEN)

$ kill -9 19432

# One-liner
$ kill -9 $(lsof -ti :8080)

If lsof is not installed: sudo apt install lsof

Method 4: /proc filesystem

On Linux, you can inspect sockets directly without installing anything:

# Find the inode for port 8080 (hex 1F90)
$ grep '1F90' /proc/net/tcp
  0: 00000000:1F90 00000000:0000 0A 00000000:00000000 ...

# Or use the portrm approach for human-readable output
$ ptrm 8080

Systemd services on port 8080

If a systemd service is using port 8080, killing it might cause it to restart automatically:

# Stop the service instead of killing the process
$ sudo systemctl stop tomcat
$ sudo systemctl stop jenkins

# Prevent it from starting on boot
$ sudo systemctl disable tomcat

Docker containers on port 8080

# Find Docker container using port 8080
$ docker ps --filter "publish=8080"
CONTAINER ID  IMAGE       PORTS                   NAMES
a1b2c3d4      nginx:latest 0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   my-nginx

# Stop it
$ docker stop my-nginx