2.2.2. Securing Portmap

The portmap service is a dynamic port assignment daemon for RPC services such as NIS and NFS. It has weak authentication mechanisms and has the ability to assign a wide range of ports for the services it controls. For these reasons, it is difficult to secure.

Note

Securing portmap only affects NFSv2 and NFSv3 implementations, since NFSv4 no longer requires it. If you plan to implement an NFSv2 or NFSv3 server, then portmap is required, and the following section applies.

If running RPC services, follow these basic rules.

2.2.2.1. Protect portmap With TCP Wrappers

It is important to use TCP Wrappers to limit which networks or hosts have access to the portmap service since it has no built-in form of authentication.

Further, use only IP addresses when limiting access to the service. Avoid using hostnames, as they can be forged by DNS poisoning and other methods.