rpcbind is a server that converts RPC program numbers into universal addresses. It must be running on the host to be able to make RPC calls on a server on that machine.

When an RPC service is started, it tells rpcbind the address at which it is listening, and the RPC program numbers it is prepared to serve. When a client wishes to make an RPC call to a given program number, it first contacts rpcbind on the server machine to determine the address where RPC requests should be sent.

rpcbind should be started before any other RPC service. Normally, standard RPC servers are started by port monitors, so rpcbind must be started before port monitors are invoked.

When rpcbind is started, it checks that certain name-to-address translation-calls function correctly. If they fail, the network configuration databases may be corrupt. Since RPC services cannot function correctly in this situation, rpcbind reports the condition and terminates.

rpcbind can only be started by the super-user.

The following options are supported:

-d

Run in debug mode. In this mode, rpcbind will not fork when it starts, will print additional information during operation, and will abort on certain errors. With this option, the name-to-address translation consistency checks are shown in detail.

-w

Do a warm start. If rpcbind aborts or terminates on SIGINT or SIGTERM, it will write the current list of registered services to /tmp/portmap.file and /tmp/rpcbind.file. Starting rpcbind with the -w option instructs it to look for these files and start operation with the registrations found in them. This allows rpcbind to resume operation without requiring all RPC services to be restarted.

/tmp/portmap.file

/tmp/rpcbind.file

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

rpcinfo(1M), rpcbind(3NSL), attributes(5)

Terminating rpcbind with SIGKILL will prevent the warm-start files from being written.

All RPC servers must be restarted if the following occurs: rpcbind crashes (or is killed with SIGKILL) and is unable to to write the warm-start files; rpcbind is started without the -w option after a graceful termination; or, the warm-start files are not found by rpcbind.