Why is Apache running on port 8080 instead on port 80?

Question

I am confused why Apache is not responding on port 80 ...

$ wget http://localhost:80  
--2014-05-06 15:32:44--  http://localhost/
Resolving localhost (localhost)... 127.0.0.1
Connecting to localhost (localhost)|127.0.0.1|:80... failed: Connection refused.

... but instead on post 8080 ...

$ wget http://localhost:8080
--2014-05-06 15:32:38--  http://localhost:8080/
Resolving localhost (localhost)... 127.0.0.1
Connecting to localhost (localhost)|127.0.0.1|:8080... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 177 [text/html]
Saving to: ‘index.html’

100%[=================================================>] 177 --.-K/s   in 0s

2014-05-06 15:32:38 (16,4 MB/s) - ‘index.html’ saved [177/177]

Not too much too see in the output of apache2ctl:

$ apache2ctl -t -D DUMP_VHOSTS
VirtualHost configuration:
*:80 is a NameVirtualHost
   default server localhost (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf:1)
   port 80 namevhost localhost (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf:1)
   port 80 namevhost localhost (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf:1)

However, netstat confirms the port:

$ sudo netstat -anp | grep :8080
tcp6       0      0 :::8080        :::*       LISTEN      5353/apache2

---

As asked by Joel here is the ports.conf:

$ sudo cat /etc/apache2/ports.conf
# If you just change the port or add more ports here, you will likely also
# have to change the VirtualHost statement in
# /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

Listen 8080

<IfModule ssl_module>
    Listen 443
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_gnutls.c>
    Listen 443
</IfModule>

# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet
# NameVirtualHost *:8800
Listen 8800

Answer 1

Why is Apache running on port 8080 instead on port 80?

The usual reason why apache is often configured to listen on that port is that a process need to be run under the root account or to be granted specific privileges to be able to listen on TCP ports lower than 1024 and that includes of course port 80.

Using an higher, unprivileged port number allows to run apache under a regular account without any specific configuration.

8080 is an easy to remember replacement for 80.

Answer 2

What's the value of the Listen directive in the config file in /etc/apache2/ports.conf?

Yours says 8080 and 8800, not 80, which is why you got those results.