Changing default port (i.e. 5037) on which adb server runs

Question

I am a budding android developer and if there is no easy way of configuring the adb server to run on another port then the inflexibility of the tools will force me to quit android app development.

A web search did not return any solutions.

I also searched for '5037' in all files in android sdk directory but did not find a setting there.

Answer 1

Use the environment variable ANDROID_ADB_SERVER_PORT to select the port.

The following works under bash:

$ export ANDROID_ADB_SERVER_PORT=12345 
$ adb start-server
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 12345 *
* daemon started successfully *
$ adb devices
List of devices attached 
TA2070M5O6  device
$ ANDROID_ADB_SERVER_PORT=6789 adb devices
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 6789 *
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached 

In another terminal I ran:

$ ANDROID_ADB_SERVER_PORT=6789 emulator ...

Back to original terminal:

$ ANDROID_ADB_SERVER_PORT=6789 adb devices
List of devices attached 
emulator-5554   device
$ adb devices # ANDROID_ADB_SERVER_PORT was exported as 12345
List of devices attached 
TA2070M5O6  device

I found this via the Jenkins Android Emulator Plugin as I noticed it was running adb on a different port.

Answer 2

With the latest adb version,

Use option -P (Note: Caps P)to start adb server in a specific port.

For Example, Try

$adb -P 5038 start-server

It will list the devices attached to this specific adb server. If the adb server is not running then it will start a new adb server with the given port number.

Hope it helps someone reading this post.

Thanks.

Answer 3

In Windows, go to Environment Variables – Add a new one called ANDROID_ADB_SERVER_PORT and set it to whatever you want, I've set to 5038.

Should look like this:

Solved it for me.

Answer 4

There is another variable that supports this for connecting to a different machine's adb:

ADB_SERVER_SOCKET=tcp:some.other.host:1234 adb devices

To use it, you need to start adb on the other host with -a and probably background it too:

( adb -a -P 1234 nodaemon server & ) &