Unable to bind ports: Docker-for-Windows & Hyper-V excluding but not using important port ranges

I have tried with the latest version of my channel (Stable or Edge)
I have uploaded Diagnostics
Diagnostics ID: BB0297BB-C287-4F0B-A007-72B5F2D7BD72/20190102235413

Expected behavior

Be able to bind specific ports that I have always used.
Be able to specify which ports docker/hyperv exclude or use, and/or I expect that docker/hyper-v actually use the ports that it is excluding and that they show up in netstat -ano as being used or listened on.

Actual behavior

If I start a service that binds on port 50051 (it is a grpc service, and that is the traditional port used by grpc), it says:
listen tcp :50051: bind: An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions.

Information

Is it reproducible? Yes
Is the problem new? Yes. My previous installation of docker for windows, from a year ago when I was on Windows 1709, didn't have this problem.
Did the problem appear with an update? Yes, you could say that. I wiped my harddrive and started over with Windows 1809 and the latest version of Docker for Windows.
Windows Version: Windows 10 Pro 1809 (Version 10.0.17763 Build 17763)
Docker for Windows Version: 2.0.0.0-win81
Docker version: 18.09.0

Steps to reproduce the behavior

MinGW 12:11:50 ~$ docker run -p 50051:50051 hello-world
C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\Resources\bin\docker.exe: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint infallible_lehmann (906354afc8855cc38fc8ac3e9e5b0642c9470f48f99c48e188ed3c8cfe236c9e): Error starting userland proxy: Bind for 0.0.0.0:50051: unexpected error Permission denied.

My own investigation:

I was extremely confused by this problem, because I was able to bind other ports, such as 8080 or 60000, yet it did not appear that 50051 was in use by anything on my system.

Running netstat -ano shows nothing using 50051.

Running Get-NetTCPConnection in powershell with admin privileges shows nothing using 50051.

Even if I disconnect from the internet and disable both windows firewall and my antivirus, and run everything as admin, I still get the errors.

After hours of google searching, I found a command that showed what happened to 50051:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> netsh interface ipv4 show excludedportrange protocol=tcp

Protocol tcp Port Exclusion Ranges

Start Port    End Port
----------    --------
     49692       49791
     49792       49891
     49892       49991
     49992       50091
     50092       50191
     50214       50313
     50498       50597

* - Administered port exclusions.

It seems that 50051 is excluded (whatever that means?!), even though it isn't in use by anything.

After lots of trial and error, I discovered that Docker for Windows and Hyper-V are responsible for all of those excluded port ranges above.

It also seems like all those port ranges change or increase by 1 every time I reboot, so I suppose 450 reboots from now my problem will go away, maybe...

I have never had this problem, despite using docker for years now.

I run lots of containers and setups that other people at my company work on and rely on, so it is not feasible for me to be changing the ports around on them to work around this issue. (Other people use the kube templates and docker-compose, and some of them connect with other docker-compose networks, etc, and expect things on certain ports.)

When I try to delete that excluded port range, I get this, despite running the command as administrator:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> netsh interface ipv4 delete excludedportrange protocol=tcp startport=49992 numberofports=100
Access is denied.

Solution in googlevr/gvr-unity-sdk#1002 works for me but not ideal

That workaround does not work for me, unfortunately, despite having admin rights.

@veqryn

@veqryn the workaround worked for me, the steps are:

Disable hyper-v (which will required a couple of restarts)
dism.exe /Online /Disable-Feature:Microsoft-Hyper-V
When you finish all the required restarts, reserve the port you want so hyper-v doesn't reserve it back
netsh int ipv4 add excludedportrange protocol=tcp startport=50051 numberofports=1
Re-Enable hyper-V (which will require a couple of restart)
dism.exe /Online /Enable-Feature:Microsoft-Hyper-V /All

when your system is back, you will be able to bind to that port successfully.

Make Electrum tests pass on windows (#932)

Issues go stale after 90d of inactivity.
Mark the issue as fresh with /remove-lifecycle stale comment.
Stale issues will be closed after an additional 30d of inactivity.

Prevent issues from auto-closing with an /lifecycle frozen comment.

If this issue is safe to close now please do so.

Send feedback to Docker Community Slack channels #docker-for-mac or #docker-for-windows.
/lifecycle stale

/remove-lifecycle stale

Merge master into Android (#1002)

What's the status for this?

Today I had 100 of reservations which caused Skype for Business to stop working since it couldn't find any available ports. Uninstall docker/hyper-v/containers removed these reservations and Skype for Business had ports to work with again.

This is a critical error that should be focused on since it reserves so many ports that isn't in use. I can't uninstall docker/hyper-v/containers or similar workarounds each time I get problems with Skype for Business in conjunction with meetings.

This makes hyper-v unusable for me and most of my company.

@enashed

@enashed Does your solution (disabling and re-enabling HyperV) have any side effects? Will my virtual switches and virtual machines still be there after applying your solution?

Answering myself: This actually does have side effects. It deletes your virtual switches. You should keep that in mind when applying this solution.

this issue is still present
/remove-lifecycle stale

Hi guys, I've the same problem. This is really blocking me.

but after that, i don't have access to internet in wsl.

Weird, it worked for me? I havent had the problem since but I'll try and verify when it pops up again.

How is this still not solved.... very frustrating problem.

but after that, i don't have access to internet in wsl.

I'm having the same issue. But sometimes it says "The service is starting or stopping. Please try again later" after I run "net stop winnat", then I can't make it start again, and I get stuck there. :(

Still encouner this bug from time to time,

Error response from daemon: Ports are not available: exposing port TCP 0.0.0.0:9000 -> 0.0.0.0:0: listen tcp 0.0.0.0:9000: bind: An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions.

but following this can fix it:

#issuecomment-7

SOLUTION: The right solution TLDR version

Source Article

The correct solution is simply to reset the “TCP Dynamic Port Range” so that Hyper-V only reserves ports in the range we have set. You can reset the “TCP Dynamic Port Range” to 49152–65535 by running the following command with administrator privileges, but you can also change it to a smaller range if you think it is too large.

netsh int ipv4 set dynamic tcp start=49152 num=16384
netsh int ipv6 set dynamic tcp start=49152 num=16384

The article discusses a problem encountered while using Docker. The issue involves ports of Docker containers not working, leading to a common error related to access permissions. The root cause is attributed to the "TCP dynamic port range" in Windows, with potential conflicts arising from Hyper-V's reserved port numbers.

The article acknowledges that while stopping and starting the Winnat service may offer a temporary solution, it explicitly states that this method is essentially a simplified version of rebooting the computer. The author points out that relying on this approach may not guarantee a resolution, as the probability of success is random, with some users reporting it works while others say it doesn't. The article strongly recommends against this method as a reliable or optimal solution due to its unpredictable nature.

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Docker says the port is taken, but no program is listening. Windows often reserved that port for itself.

Check:

netsh interface ipv4 show excludedportrange protocol=tcp

If your port is on that list, the WinNAT service is holding it. Give it back:

net stop winnat
net start winnat

If your port is not on that list, this will not help. Something else really has the port.

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Unable to bind ports: Docker-for-Windows & Hyper-V excluding but not using important port ranges #3171

Expected behavior

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My own investigation:

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Unable to bind ports: Docker-for-Windows & Hyper-V excluding but not using important port ranges #3171

Description

Expected behavior

Actual behavior

Information

Steps to reproduce the behavior

My own investigation:

Activity

rramsden commented on Jan 23, 2019

veqryn commented on Jan 23, 2019

enashed commented on Jan 31, 2019

docker-robott commented on May 1, 2019

veqryn commented on May 1, 2019

dozer75 commented on Jun 12, 2019

Sureiya commented on Jun 26, 2019

sbley commented on Jul 16, 2019

sbley commented on Aug 1, 2019

ciprian-chichirita commented on Sep 6, 2019

danidemi commented on Sep 17, 2019

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CelestialArcadia commented on Jan 17, 2024

SOLUTION: The right solution TLDR version

neversamiever-art commented on Oct 7, 2026

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