How to check open ports on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 Linux

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Firewalld is a an underlining mechanism for firewall configuration on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8. Current RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 version of the Firewalld daemon is based on Nftables. To check open ports on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 you can use the firewall-cmd command as shown below. We will also discuss how to check open ports remotely with the nmap command.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to check open ports on RHEL 8.
  • How to check services on RHEL 8.
  • How to check open ports remotely using nmap.
  • How to list open ports and service with firewall-cmd.

Check open ports on RHEL 8 Linux firewall using firewall-cmd command.

Check open ports on RHEL 8 Linux firewall using the firewall-cmd command.

Software Requirements and Conventions Used

Software Requirements and Linux Command Line Conventions
Category Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used
System RHEL 8 / CentOS 8
Software N/A
Other Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command.
Conventions # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

How to check open ports on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 Linux step by step instructions

When checking for open firewall ports on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 Linux it is important to know that firewall ports can be opened in two main different ways. Firstly, the firewall port can be opened as part of a pre-configured service. For example:

# firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-service=http

Secondly, the ports can be open directly as custom user predefined ports. Example:

# firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port 8080/tcp
  1. Check service ports opened: 
    # firewall-cmd --list-services
cockpit dhcpv6-client http https ssh

    The above services have their relevant ports open.

  2. Check for ports opened: 
    # firewall-cmd --list-ports
20/tcp 8080/tcp

    The above ports, namely 20 and 8080 are open for incoming traffic.

  3. Check for all open ports and services: 
    # firewall-cmd --list-all
  4. Lastly you can get a precise overview of all open ports by the nmap command for any remote Linux host. For example the below nmap command will probe 1000 most commonly used ports: 
    $ nmap rhel8
Host is up (0.78s latency).
Not shown: 994 filtered ports
PORT     STATE  SERVICE
20/tcp   closed ftp-data
22/tcp   open   ssh
80/tcp   open   http
443/tcp  closed https
8080/tcp closed http-proxy
9090/tcp closed zeus-admin

    Please note that closed means that the firewall port is open, however, the underlining service on the actual RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 server is not running. It is also possible to check for a specific port. For example:

    $ nmap -p 80 rhel8

PORT   STATE SERVICE
80/tcp open  http

Visit our nmap guide for more nmap command usage examples.

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