OFBiz relies heavily on the underlying TCP/IP networking stack, as well as the embedded Catalina/Tomcat servlet container in which it runs for Internet communication support. For example, the Catalina servlet container provides all the basic HTTP and HTTPS connection handling on the default IP ports of 8080 and 8443 respectively. Ports 8080 and 8443 by convention do not require any special usage privileges on the hosting system. This means that any non-privileged user may startup an OFBiz instance from the install directory.
A downside of running web servers on ports 8080 and 8443 is that client browsers expect to find URLs on ports 80 and 443. Port 80 is used for non-secure connections while port 443 is used for secure, HTTPS-based communications. To run a web server on IP ports 80 and 443 often requires special privileges, sometimes called "root" or "superuser", on the host server. When OFBiz is configured to run on these ports, it is considered by some to...