Portmap and RPC in RHL8
 

Dear All,

Got a system running mysql, bugzilla, apache, VNC server. I noticed that netstat -autv shows sunrpc as active. Also, did a /etc/rc.d/inittab/portmap stop which proved 'portmap' was there.

Based on what this system is currently running, does it need sunrpc & can portman be stopped?

"portmap is a server that converts RPC program numbers into DARPA protocol
port numbers. It must be running in order to make RPC calls.

When an RPC server is started, it will tell portmap what port number it
is listening to, and what RPC program numbers it is prepared to serve.
When a client wishes to make an RPC call to a given program number, it
will first contact portmap on the server machine to determine the port
number where RPC packets should be sent.

portmap must be started before any RPC servers are invoked.

Normally portmap forks and dissociates itself from the terminal like any
other daemon. portmap then logs errors using syslog(3)"

Thanks!

sunRPC is used by FAM, NFS and NIS amongst other things. If your system doesn't use/export NFS network shares and you don't need file alteration monitoring you can close it down entirely, indeed this is recommended.

The plan is to phase FAM out in favour of something that doesn't use RPC, this work is underway now but not complete yet.

OK
 

Thanks!

"you don't need file alteration monitoring you can close it down entirely, indeed this is recommended."

I will be running some monitorin tool like tripwire to monitor any system changes, then does this implies sunrpc should be kept?

Closing down as opposed to uninstalling? Look slike portmap is also used by other programs, right?

Thanks again!

I don't know what tripwire does I'm afraid