ESXi Open Network Ports

A limited number of network ports are open on ESXi. The most

important ports and services are the following:

•

80 — This port serves a reverse proxy that is open only to

display a static Web page that you see when browsing to the

server. Otherwise, this port redirects all traffic to port 443 to

provide SSL-encrypted communications to the ESXi host.

•

443 (reverse proxy) — This port also acts as a reverse proxy to

a number of services to provide SSL-encrypted communica

-

tion to these services. The services include the

VMware Virtual

Infrastructure API (VI API)

, which provides access to the RCLIs,

VI Client, VirtualCenter Server, and the SDK.

•

427 (service location protocol) — This port provides access for

the service location protocol, a generic protocol to search for

the VI API.

•

5989 — This port is open for the CIM server, which is an inter

-

face for Third-party management tools.

•

902 — This port is open to support the older VIM API, specifi

-

cally the older versions of the VI Client and VirtualCenter.