Cannot access Tomcat from external IP address - nginx

Question

I installed tomcat on my virtual machine (on Azure) but failed to access it from an external IP address. I tried some methods I found on stack overflow, but they did not seem to work. The port forwarding tester also says Port 8080 is closed on [my_ip_address]. I did manage to access it from localhost:8080 or 127.0.0.1:8080. I run curl 127.0.0.1:8080 and it returns the correct webpage. In addition, nginx is also able to access the website through the port.
The firewall is not running.
> sudo firewall-cmd --list-all
FirewallD is not running
Tomcat configuration file
I added address="0.0.0.0", but it does not work in my case.
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<!--
Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
(the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.
-->
<!-- Note: A "Server" is not itself a "Container", so you may not
define subcomponents such as "Valves" at this level.
Documentation at /docs/config/server.html
-->
<Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener" />
<!-- Security listener. Documentation at /docs/config/listeners.html
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.security.SecurityListener" />
-->
<!--APR library loader. Documentation at /docs/apr.html -->
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener" SSLEngine="on" />
<!--Initialize Jasper prior to webapps are loaded. Documentation at /docs/jasper-howto.html -->
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.JasperListener" />
<!-- Prevent memory leaks due to use of particular java/javax APIs-->
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.JreMemoryLeakPreventionListener" />
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.mbeans.GlobalResourcesLifecycleListener" />
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.ThreadLocalLeakPreventionListener" />
<!-- Global JNDI resources
Documentation at /docs/jndi-resources-howto.html
-->
<GlobalNamingResources>
<!-- Editable user database that can also be used by
UserDatabaseRealm to authenticate users
-->
<Resource name="UserDatabase" auth="Container"
type="org.apache.catalina.UserDatabase"
description="User database that can be updated and saved"
factory="org.apache.catalina.users.MemoryUserDatabaseFactory"
pathname="conf/tomcat-users.xml" />
</GlobalNamingResources>
<!-- A "Service" is a collection of one or more "Connectors" that share
a single "Container" Note: A "Service" is not itself a "Container",
so you may not define subcomponents such as "Valves" at this level.
Documentation at /docs/config/service.html
-->
<Service name="Catalina">
<!--The connectors can use a shared executor, you can define one or more named thread pools-->
<!--
<Executor name="tomcatThreadPool" namePrefix="catalina-exec-"
maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="4"/>
-->
<!-- A "Connector" represents an endpoint by which requests are received
and responses are returned. Documentation at :
Java HTTP Connector: /docs/config/http.html (blocking & non-blocking)
Java AJP Connector: /docs/config/ajp.html
APR (HTTP/AJP) Connector: /docs/apr.html
Define a non-SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8080
-->
<Connector port="8080"
address="0.0.0.0"
useIPVHosts="true"
protocol="HTTP/1.1"
connectionTimeout="20000"
redirectPort="8443" />
<!-- A "Connector" using the shared thread pool-->
<!--
<Connector executor="tomcatThreadPool"
port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
connectionTimeout="20000"
redirectPort="8443" />
-->
<!-- Define an SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8443
This connector uses the BIO implementation that requires the JSSE
style configuration. When using the APR/native implementation, the
OpenSSL style configuration is required as described in the APR/native
documentation -->
<!--
<Connector port="8443" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol"
maxThreads="150" SSLEnabled="true" scheme="https" secure="true"
clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" />
-->
<!-- Define an AJP 1.3 Connector on port 8009 -->
<!--
<Connector protocol="AJP/1.3"
address="::1"
port="8009"
redirectPort="8443" />
-->
<!-- An Engine represents the entry point (within Catalina) that processes
every request. The Engine implementation for Tomcat stand alone
analyzes the HTTP headers included with the request, and passes them
on to the appropriate Host (virtual host).
Documentation at /docs/config/engine.html -->
<!-- You should set jvmRoute to support load-balancing via AJP ie :
<Engine name="Catalina" defaultHost="localhost" jvmRoute="jvm1">
-->
<Engine name="Catalina" defaultHost="localhost">
<!--For clustering, please take a look at documentation at:
/docs/cluster-howto.html (simple how to)
/docs/config/cluster.html (reference documentation) -->
<!--
<Cluster className="org.apache.catalina.ha.tcp.SimpleTcpCluster"/>
-->
<!-- Use the LockOutRealm to prevent attempts to guess user passwords
via a brute-force attack -->
<Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.LockOutRealm">
<!-- This Realm uses the UserDatabase configured in the global JNDI
resources under the key "UserDatabase". Any edits
that are performed against this UserDatabase are immediately
available for use by the Realm. -->
<Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.UserDatabaseRealm"
resourceName="UserDatabase"/>
</Realm>
<Host name="localhost" appBase="webapps"
unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="true">
<!-- SingleSignOn valve, share authentication between web applications
Documentation at: /docs/config/valve.html -->
<!--
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.authenticator.SingleSignOn" />
-->
<!-- Access log processes all example.
Documentation at: /docs/config/valve.html
Note: The pattern used is equivalent to using pattern="common" -->
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve" directory="logs"
resolveHosts="true" prefix="localhost_access_log." suffix=".txt"
pattern="%h %l %u %t "%r" %s %b" />
</Host>
</Engine>
</Service>
</Server>
Active Internet Connections
I managed to bind Apache Tomcat to IPv4 as suggested by confused genius, but it still did not work.
> netstat -ant
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:8080 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:8005 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:5355 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
tcp 0 36 10.0.0.4:22 75.84.33.143:59788 ESTABLISHED
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:8080 127.0.0.1:57604 TIME_WAIT
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:59724 127.0.0.1:8005 TIME_WAIT
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:8080 127.0.0.1:57584 TIME_WAIT
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:8080 127.0.0.1:57518 TIME_WAIT
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:8080 127.0.0.1:57520 TIME_WAIT
tcp 0 0 10.0.0.4:80 75.84.33.143:59952 ESTABLISHED
tcp 0 0 10.0.0.4:80 75.84.33.143:59953 ESTABLISHED
tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN
tcp6 0 0 :::5355 :::* LISTEN

Answer 1

From netstat -ant output , port 8080 is listenting only on tcp6 (ipv6) but not on tcp(ipv4).
tcp6 0 0 :::8080 :::* LISTEN
so it needs to be enabled for ipv4 as well in order to access it the host ip address
check this link it might help

Answer 2

I found the solution. It actually has nothing to do with Tomcat. The problem lies in Azure: you need to explicitly allow the port to be accessible in Azure. Adding it to the firewall does not solve the problems. (You can add inbound port rule in Home/[VM]/Networking)