PortMapper

nice link that explain, how the portmap-daemon works.

http://www.linuxfibel.de/rpc.htm (german)

Windows:

A smal and freel port-mapper for Windows: http://www.kmint21.com/free/port-map.zip

Alcatel Portmapper: http://www.xs4all.nl/~bmborsje/apm/

FreeBSD: The portmap command appeared in BSD 4.3.

SYNOPSIS

portmap [-d] [-v] [-h bindip]

http://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=8&topic=portmap

using NFS on Linux:

Q: Can I have NFS? A: apt-get install nfs-common nfs-kernel-server (you need portmapper/rpc running to make nfs work)

(rpcinfo -p localhost) SERVER /etc/exports directory      client(option1,option2) exmaple: /tmp           172.16.1.*(ro,root_squash) exportfs (and /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server start) CLIENT mount servernameorip:/dir /mountpoint /etc/fstab servernameorip:/dir /mnt nfs rw,hard,intr 0 0 showmount -e nfsserver

The portmapper is used by things like NFS and NIS. If you don't use those then you're safe not running it.