Feature request: ng serve should select another port if 4200 is already taken

[amreladawy]

Feature request

• OS?
  Windows 7
• Versions.

angular-cli: 1.0.0-beta.11-webpack
node: 4.4.7
os: win32 x64

• Repro steps.

a. start an angular project with ng serve
b. start another angular project with ng serve

The second one won't start as port 4200 is already taken
Port 4200 is already in use.

Ionic cli is switching to another port automatically
The port 8100 was taken on the host localhost - using port 8101 instead

[mwawrusch]

Random ports are a bad idea, especially if you use callbacks to login (like facebook). Just provide an easy option in the config (not the ember config) to specify the port.

[amreladawy]

I don't think random ports are a good idea as well. I wanted angular-cli to do like ionic-cli. increment the port number until the first available port is found and printed.

[bhelzer]

I'd rather have cli configured with my port, otherwise the port of my app would depend on in which order I start my two projects.

[amreladawy]

@bhelzer You already have the option to specify the port at your wish

ng serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 4201 --live-reload-port 49153

We are proposing the facility of automatically switch to another port if the port is already taken.

[filipesilva]

There is currently a way to get an free port, by using --port=0:

$ ng serve --port=0
** NG Live Development Server is running on http://localhost:49152. **
# and on another console
$ ng serve --port=0
** NG Live Development Server is running on http://localhost:49153. **

Thanks to @clydin for highlighting this.

We really need to document these things better, @Puigcerber was working on a fix and it turned out we already had a functionality and no one remembered :/

[manoj30dec]

Thanks @amreladawy ng serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 4201 --live-reload-port 49153
works for me.