CouchDB port 80

Question

Is it possible to run couchdb on port 80? I'm looking to host a couchapp from it and don't want my users to have to type a port number in the url.

When I change the port to 80 in the couchdb config it becomes unavailable, and I have no access to it on 80 or any other port. I have to change the port back in the local.ini file.

Is this not a recommended setup? Would I be better hosting behind a reverse proxy? If so, any tips on how to get it working behind an IIS reverse proxy? I tried that too using ARR and URL Rewrite, with no success.

EDIT:

First, this chapter of the CouchDB definitive guide seems to suggest it is ok to server web apps directly from couch. Curious what the community thinks:

http://guide.couchdb.org/editions/1/en/standalone.html

Second, I installed CouchDB on a second machine that does NOT have IIS installed on it and it ran on port 80 just fine, so I suspect that even though I've turned off all websites in IIS it is still hogging port 80. Any way to make IIS give up port 80?

Answer 1

Ok I figured it out. By default IIS listens for port 80 on ALL IPs. So it also grabs 127.0.0.1 and listens on port 80 there as well, EVEN IF YOU TURN OF ALL WEBSITES listening on 80.

To remedy this you need to add an IP address to the IP listen list. By default this list is empty and IIS decides to just listen to all IPs. But if you add an IP or IPs to this list IIS will only listen to those IPs.

First here's how you can see what IPs are in the listen list:

netsh http show iplisten

If the list is blank IIS is listening on all IPs. To add an IP to the list:

netsh http add iplisten XXX.XXX.X.XXX (where the X's are your IP)

Now IIS and CouchDB can exist together on port 80 in happiness, as long as they both have their own IP's to listen to.