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. Deactivated for the vSphere Replication add-on appliance. vSphere Replication Management Service
hbrsrv Automatic vSphere Replication Service
sshd Deactivated 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 VRMS Appliance Management Interface 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 vCenter Server 80 TCP All management traffic to the local vCenter Server proxy system. vSphere Replication opens an SSL tunnel to connect to the vCenter Server services.
vSphere Replication appliance Remote Lookup Service 443 TCP All calls to the remote Lookup Service.
Site Recovery HTML 5 user interface vSphere Replication appliance 443 HTTPS Default port for the Site Recovery HTML 5 user interface when you open it from the vSphere Replication appliance.
Site Recovery HTML 5 user interface Local and remote vCenter Server or all vCenter Server instances in Enhanced Linked Mode with a registered vSphere Replication. 443 HTTPS Default port for the Site Recovery HTML 5 user interface when you open it from the vSphere Replication appliance.
Site Recovery HTML 5 user interface Local and remote Platform Services Controller instances or all Platform Services Controller instances in Enhanced Linked Mode with a registered vSphere Replication. 443 HTTPS Default port for the Site Recovery HTML 5 user interface when you open it from the vSphere Replication appliance.
Site Recovery HTML 5 user interface Remote Site Recovery Manager аppliance 443 TCP TCP port 443 must be open when you access the Site Recovery HTML 5 user interface from the vSphere Replication appliance.
vSphere Replication server in the vSphere Replication appliance Local ESXi host (intra-site) 80 HTTP Traffic between the vSphere Replication server and the ESXi hosts on the same site. vSphere Replication opens an SSL tunnel to the ESXi services.
vSphere Replication appliance Local and remote vCenter Server 443 TCP All management traffic to the vSphere Replication appliance.
vSphere Replication appliance https://vcsa.vmware.com 443 TCP Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) for vSphere Replication.
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 VRMS Appliance Management Interface.
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 VRMS Appliance Management Interface.
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.