How to Find and Kill a Process that is Using a Particular Port

You try to install an application and get the error that the specified port is in use

You can find the application that is using the process kill it, here's how:

Find what application/process:

sudo netstat -lpn | grep :<portnumber>

Example

sudo netstat -lpn | grep :8080

The PID will precede the name of the application using the port

Example

tcp6       0      0 :::8080                 :::*                    LISTEN      5723/apache2

Kill the process:

kill <port number>

Example:

kill 5723

If there are multiple instances of the application, you can use the killall command

Example:

Killall apache2

Now you can continue to install the application

If you wish to prevent the application from starting automatically, you can remove it from the init.d folder

rm /etc/init.d/<application name>

Example

rm /etc/init.d/apache2