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

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.