How to fix “not starting portmapper is not running … (warning)” in Debian or Kali Linux?

This is a small guide on How to fix “not starting portmapper is not running … (warning)” in Debian or Kali Linux.

Fixing “not starting portmapper is not running … (warning)”:

In most Kali or Debian installation users see this warning while booting their system. There’s two ways to fix this, it is up to the readers which one they choose.

Solution 1: Disable nfs-common service from startup using chkconfig

If you look into rpcbind script, it says that it replaces portmapper service. In my mind, there must be some dependencies somewhere that causes this warning message to appear.

The main two services used by rpcbind are as follows:

• NFS (Network File System or nfs-common)
• NIS (Network Information service)

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: rpcbind
# Required-Start: $network $local_fs
# Required-Stop: $network $local_fs
# Default-Start: S 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: RPC portmapper replacement
# Description: rpcbind is a server that converts RPC (Remote
# Procedure Call) program numbers into DARPA
# protocol port numbers. It must be running in
# order to make RPC calls. Services that use
# RPC include NFS and NIS.

Of these two it seems nfs-common causes the most issues, so we are just going to disable that.

If you don’t use NFS functionality right now then you can disable NFS at startup.

First of all install chkconfig application.

apt-get install chkconfig -y

Now use the following command to list nfs-common service, it’s runlevel and dependencies.

chkconfig -l nfs-common --deps

As you can see from the screenshot below, it’s dependencies are $portmap and $time.

Note: Use chkconfig -l servicename –deps to find out dependencies for any services. This is particularly useful when you have vague idea on what you’re after.

If you are happy with the findings and want to remove it from startup, issue the following command

chkconfig --del nfs-common

From the output, your can see nfs-common is now disabled from run-levels.

In case you’ve found that this is causing more trouble than actually fixing, (i.e. nfs-common being used by another service and now you’re getting errors), you can revert your change back easily. To revert your changes back, use the following command:

chkconfig --add nfs-common

Again, from the screenshot below, you can see nfs-common is back in startup with exactly the same run levels as before.

Then reboot. Next time you shouldn’t see that warning anymore.

A similar problem with Pulse Audio If you also have pulseaudio warning during boot time, If you have pulseaudio warning during Kali or Debian Linux during boot up  then follow this guide Fixing PulseAudio configured for per-user sessions … (warning) in Kali Linux and Debian.

Solution 2: Enabling rpcbind defaults

I was notified that this is not the best solution and it enables unnecessary services to load at startup and makes your system vulnerable. However, if you’re not too worried about that, then go ahead … :) By loading rpcbind defaults and enabling them, you can fix this easily. Open up a terminal and type in the following two commands,

 update-rc.d rpcbind defaults
 update-rc.d rpcbind enable

That’s it, Next time you shouldn’t see that warning anymore.

If you also have pulseaudio warning during boot time, Fixing PulseAudio configured for per-user sessions … (warning) in Kali Linux and Debian.

Portmap

The portmapper (rpc.portmap or just portmap, or rpcbind) is an Open Network Computing Remote Procedure Call (ONC RPC) service that runs on network nodes that provide other ONC RPC services.

Version 2 of the port mapper protocol maps ONC RPC program number/version number pairs to the network port number for that version of that program. When an ONC RPC server is started, it will tell the port mapper, for each particular program number/version number pair it supports for a particular transport protocol (TCP or UDP), what port number it is using for that particular program number/version number pair on that transport protocol. Clients wishing to make an ONC RPC call to a particular version of a particular ONC RPC service must first contact the port mapper on the server machine to determine the actual TCP or UDP port to use.

Versions 3 and 4 of the protocol, called the rpcbind protocol, map a program number/version number pair, and an indicator that specifies a transport protocol, to a transport-layer endpoint address for that program number/version number pair on that transport protocol.

The port mapper service always uses TCP or UDP port 111; a fixed port is required for it, as a client would not be able to get the port number for the port mapper service from the port mapper itself.

The port mapper must be started before any other RPC servers are started.

Example portmap instance

This shows the different programs and their versions, and which ports they use. For example, it shows that NFS is running, both version 2 and 3, and can be reached at TCP port 2049 or UDP port 2049, depending on what transport protocol the client wants to use, and that the mount protocol, both version 1 and 2, is running, and can be reached at UDP port 644 or TCP port 645, depending on what transport protocol the client wants to use.

$ rpcinfo -p 
  program vers proto   port
   100000    2   tcp    111  portmapper
   100000    2   udp    111  portmapper
   100003    2   udp   2049  nfs
   100003    3   udp   2049  nfs
   100003    4   udp   2049  nfs
   100003    2   tcp   2049  nfs
   100003    3   tcp   2049  nfs
   100003    4   tcp   2049  nfs
   100024    1   udp  32770  status
   100021    1   udp  32770  nlockmgr
   100021    3   udp  32770  nlockmgr
   100021    4   udp  32770  nlockmgr
   100024    1   tcp  32769  status
   100021    1   tcp  32769  nlockmgr
   100021    3   tcp  32769  nlockmgr
   100021    4   tcp  32769  nlockmgr
   100005    1   udp    644  mountd
   100005    1   tcp    645  mountd
   100005    2   udp    644  mountd
   100005    2   tcp    645  mountd
   100005    3   udp    644  mountd
   100005    3   tcp    645  mountd

Thanks for reading.

Note: This surely fixed my problem (I don’t use NFS), however, I am interested to know if this fixed your problem as well. Let me know, leave a comment. Thanks.