How to Open a Port on Redhat, CentOS or Fedora Linux

By default iptables firewall stores its configuration at /etc/sysconfig/iptables file. You need to edit this file and add rules to open port number.

Note: if you have SELinux  enabled, you’ll need to allow the port with semanage.

Open port 80

To open a different port just enter the port number.

Open flle /etc/sysconfig/iptables:

# vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables

Append rule as follows:

A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

Save and close the file.  Restart iptables:

# /etc/init.d/iptables restart

or,

#service iptables restart

 

Verify that port is open

Run the following command:

netstat -tulpn | less

Make sure iptables is allowing the port you enabled:

iptables -L -n

If you need more info you can refer to the man page:

man iptables