portmap and rpc applications

Welcome to discussions!

I checked my machines at work. My server has /usr/sbin/portmap listed as a running process. I went onto one of the workstations, and it didn't list portmap. I checked /System/Library/Startupitems and there wasn't any mention of it, so I checked /System/Library/LaunchDaemons and found com.apple.portmap.plist which said nothing about being disabled. I did launchctl list and com.apple.portmap is listed. The socket file that com.apple.portmap.plist talks about, exists and it's perms look good, and it's time correlates with the uptime of the box. Both machines had RPCSERVER=-AUTO- in /etc/hostconfig.

So it looks like portmap is running, but why it isn't listed in a ps output like it is on my server escapes me, unless launchd kills the process off after a time of inactivity and spawns it when a request is received.

RPC calls can add a whole new dimension to firewall configuration, too.

Roger

FWIW, I ran (as root):

launchctl start com.apple.portmap

and /usr/sbin/portmap appears in ps now.

MAYBE on a desktop, RPCSERVER should be set to YES instead of AUTOMATIC, I don't know, I haven't done any experiments so for sure, YMMV!

Roger