portmapper - is it really required?

[Steven E. Protter]

from /etc/inetd.conf

# rpc services, registered by inetd with portmap
# Do not uncomment these unless you are running portmap!

In all things, the answer is sometimes.

If you want to use rpc, you need to run portmap.

11i

Regards,

hope you are well.

SEP

[Steven E. Protter]

Should have added this in. thought of it after the fact.

http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90129/B2355-90129_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90129/00/02/260-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90129/00/02/260-toc.html&searchterms=portmap&queryid=20030714-231459

Just becasue its 10.x manual doesn't mean its not relavent.

SEP

[Con O'Kelly]

Hi Maria

It depends on what services you are running and what version of HP-UX.

portmapper has been replaced by rpcbind as of 11.x.

portmapper is a service that maps rpc addresses to rpc program numbers. Any application that uses RPC is contacted through portmapper or rpcbind daemon. NFS is an example of an application that requires rpcbind to be running.

In what context are you asking the question. Are you seeing a portmapper process running?

Cheers
Con

[Peter Gillis]

Thankyou so far for you replies to my empty question...I didnt even realise that I had sent an empty one, and now there are two entries for the same question! I have the details of my question in the other entry!!!
Sorry, but thanks
Maria

[RickyP]

Hello, can you please tell me what Portmapper is used for? I think it was used in conjunction with Silo Tape drives connected to Nonstop systems. What else is it used for? Thanks.

[Matti_Kurkela]

It is a required component for all SunRPC services.

NFS and NIS are probably the most well known of those, but for example EMC (ex-Legato) NetWorker backup software presents as a SunRPC service.

SunRPC services may be located in variable port numbers, so there must be a mechanism that allows a client to find the service it's looking for. The SunRPC portmapper (also known as rpcbind) is always in port 111 (both TCP and UDP) and all the other SunRPC services are supposed to register with it.

There are standard port number conventions for certain SunRPC services - for example, the main NFS service should in modern systems be in port 2049. Some other SunRPC services may optionally be bound to a fixed port if required, but there may not be a well-defined standard port number for all of them.

If you're thinking about disabling portmapper/rpcbind on a particular host, run "rpcinfo -p". If the output only includes lines referring to port 111, there are no active SunRPC services other than the portmapper itself, and so it can probably be safely disabled.