When I start Tomcat I see the following using netstat (filtered by tomcat PID):
TCP 0.0.0.0:5007 xxxx34793KZ:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:8081 xxxx34793KZ:0 LISTENING
TCP 0.0.0.0:8543 xxxx34793KZ:0 LISTENING
TCP 127.0.0.1:8005 xxxx34793KZ:0 LISTENING
TCP 127.0.0.1:29821 xxxx34793KZ:29822 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29822 xxxx34793KZ:29821 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29823 xxxx34793KZ:29824 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29824 xxxx34793KZ:29823 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29830 xxxx34793KZ:29831 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29831 xxxx34793KZ:29830 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29832 xxxx34793KZ:29833 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29833 xxxx34793KZ:29832 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29834 xxxx34793KZ:29835 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29835 xxxx34793KZ:29834 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29836 xxxx34793KZ:29837 ESTABLISHED
TCP 127.0.0.1:29837 xxxx34793KZ:29836 ESTABLISHED
TCP [::]:8081 xxxx34793KZ:0 LISTENING
TCP [::]:8543 xxxx34793KZ:0 LISTENING
Ports 29821-29824 and 29830-29837 are what I'm wondering about.
I have searched the web, tomcat documentation, tomcat source code and any mailing list I can think of (including Stackoverflow) and can find nothing on the purpose of these TCP ports. They come in pairs which implies to me that they are possibly configured to loopback. I'm stumped as to why Tomcat needs these.
Our application that runs on Tomcat gets installed into environments where IT Security is quite robust, so they want to know the reason for every port in use.
Any ideas?