The operation of vSphere Replication depends on certain services, ports, and external interfaces.

vSphere Replication Services

The operation of vSphere Replication depends on several services that run on the vSphere Replication virtual appliance.

Table 1. vSphere Replication Services
Service Name Startup Type Description
hms Automatic for the vSphere Replication appliance. Disabled for the vSphere Replication add-on appliance. vSphere Replication Management Service
hbrsrv Automatic vSphere Replication Service
sshd Disabled by default. SSH Service
ntpd Automatic Time service for syncing-up with Internet Time Server through Network Time Protocol.
Note: After you install or upgrade a vSphere Replication virtual appliance, you must synchronize the appliance with a time server.
vaos Automatic Guest OS initialization that drives network settings, host name settings, ssh keys creation, EULA acceptance, boot scripts execution, and VAMI initialization.

Communication Ports

vSphere Replication uses several communication ports and protocols.

The vSphere Replication appliance requires certain ports to be open.
Note: vSphere Replication servers must have NFC traffic access to target ESXi hosts.
Table 2. Ports Used by the vSphere Replication Appliance
Source Target Port Protocol Description
vSphere Replication appliance Local and remote vCenter Server 80 TCP All management traffic to the vSphere Replication appliance goes to port 80 on the vCenter Server proxy system.
vSphere Replication server in the vSphere Replication appliance ESXi host (intra-site) 80 HTTP Used to establish the connection before initial replication starts.
vSphere Replication appliance Local and remote vCenter Server 443 TCP All management traffic to the vSphere Replication appliance.
vSphere Replication server in the vSphere Replication appliance ESXi host (intra-site only) on target site 902 TCP and UDP Traffic between the vSphere Replication server and the ESXi hosts on the same site. Specifically the traffic of the NFC service to the destination ESXi servers.
Browser vSphere Replication appliance 5480 HTTPS vSphere Replication virtual appliance management interface (VAMI) Web UI.
vSphere Replication appliance vSphere Replication appliance 8043 SOAP Inter-site communication from the vSphere Replication Management servers of the source and the target site.
vCenter Server vSphere Replication appliance 8043 SOAP Intra-site communication used for SDRS.
vSphere Replication appliance vSphere Replication server 8123 SOAP Intra-site management traffic from the vSphere Replication Management server to additional vSphere Replication server in the environment.
ESXi host on the source site vSphere Replication server at the target site 31031 TCP Initial and outgoing replication traffic from the ESXi host on the source site to the vSphere Replication appliance or vSphere Replication server at the target site for replication traffic without network encryption.
ESXi host on the source site vSphere Replication server at the target site 32032 TCP Initial and outgoing replication traffic from the ESXi host on the source site to the vSphere Replication appliance or vSphere Replication server at the target site for replication traffic with network encryption.

If you deploy additional vSphere Replication servers, you must open the ports that vSphere Replication requires on those servers.

Table 3. Ports Used by the vSphere Replication Server
Source Target Port Protocol Description
vSphere Replication server ESXi host (intra-site only) on target site 902 TCP and UDP Traffic between the vSphere Replication server and the ESXi hosts on the same site. Specifically the traffic of the NFC service to the destination ESXi servers.
Browser vSphere Replication server 5480 HTTPS vSphere Replication virtual appliance management interface (VAMI) Web UI.
vSphere Replication Management server vSphere Replication server 8123 SOAP Intra-site management traffic from the vSphere Replication Management server to the vSphere Replication server.
ESXi host on the source site vSphere Replication server at the target site 31031 TCP Initial and outgoing replication traffic from the ESXi host on the source site to the vSphere Replication server at the target site for replication traffic without network encryption.
ESXi host on the source site vSphere Replication server at the target site 32032 TCP Initial and outgoing replication traffic from the ESXi host on the source site to the vSphere Replication server at the target site for replication traffic with network encryption.

Open Source and Third-Party Components

For the complete text of the open-source licenses, a list of all open-source and third-party components, and the open-source code used in vSphere Replication, you can go to http://www.vmware.com/download/open_source.html and see the VMware vSphere Replication Open Source and Licenses section under the VMware vSphere Open Source link. If a certain open-source license requires it, the vSphere Replication Open Source Disclosure Package (ODP) contains text files with instructions how to build and replace the software libraries.