Enabling ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS)

By default, PaperCut listens to ports 9191 and 9192 for HTTP and HTTPS communication respectively. These ports have been selected as they're generally unused by other applications. Because PaperCut is a web application it may be desirable to have the interface available on the standard HTTP and HTTPS ports (80 and 443 respectively). One reason for doing so may be to simplify URLs communicated verbally (as the user will not have to supply a port number).

The configuration procedure is different for each operating system. See below for instructions. Important: Before you begin, first ensure no other applications (such as IIS, or Apache) are currently installed and using ports 80 or 443 on the server hosting PaperCut.

Important

The following directions detail how to enable port 80 in addition to port 9191. Enabling an additional port is recommended over simply changing the existing port. Port 9191 is also used for server-to-server and client-to-server communication so it's important that this port continue to be made available.

Important

Also make sure you you enable the 80 and 443 firewall ports if users access PaperCut across firewall devices

Windows

  1. Stop the PaperCut MF Application Sever, under Control PanelAdministrative ToolsServices.

  2. Open the file: [app-path]\server\server.properties

  3. Enable port 80 (and 443) by changing the appropriate settings from a N to a Y. They should look like:

            server.enable-http-on-port-80=Y
            server.enable-https-on-port-443=Y
                            

  4. Restart the PaperCut MF Application Server stopped in Step 1.

  5. Test and ensure the web interface is working. e.g. http://[myserver]/admin

Linux

On Linux systems, only privileged programs that run as root may use ports under 1024. In line with security best practice PaperCut runs as a non-privileged user. To enable port 80 and 442, use iptables (or ipchains on old systems) to port-forward 80 to 9191. The following commands provide an example. You may need to consult your distribution's documentation to see how to persist the iptables rules between system restarts:

        /sbin/iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING --src 0/0 --dst <server_ip> \
              -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 9191

        /sbin/iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING --src 0/0 --dst <server_ip> \
              -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 9192
                

(These commands would typically be place these in an rc init script or the iptables startup config script as provided by your distribution.)

Mac

The approach on Mac systems is similar to Linux. Modify the Mac firewall (ipfw) with the following command:

        sudo /sbin/ipfw add 102 fwd 127.0.0.1,9191 tcp from any to any 80 in
                

See ipfw man page for all the scary details!