How to Use rpcinfo to Verify That Sessions Can Be Established

If ping is successful and backup problems still exist, you can also test with rpcinfo. Because Backup relies heavily on mapping of ports, use rpcinfo to test the operation of the portmapper. Using ping tests the connection up to the network layer in the OSI model; rpcinfo checks for communication up to the session layer.

Use the same tests with rpcinfo as with ping. Run just the steps marked with an asterisk (*) if the server is the only client.

For rpcinfo to be used successfully, the machine whose hostname you enter on the command line must have a portmapper running. In most cases, SunSoft portmappers are compatible with fully functional portmappers from other vendors (this is called a third-party portmapper). If you are using a product that provides its own portmapper, we recommend not loading the third-party portmapper until you have verified that Backup works with the rest of your environment. This process lets you test portmapper compatibility without adding other unknowns.

On Solaris, the rpcbind daemon must be running. The rpcinfo utility is part of the operating system.

The syntax for using rpcinfo to display ports using TCP is:

rpcinfo -p hostname

Substitute the long name and short name for the variable hostname, just like for ping.

You can view other rpcinfo command line options by typing rpcinfo at the command line. Notes on the rpcinfo command and its error messages are available in the UNIX man page for rpcinfo. Repeat rpcinfo using all the locations and all the iterations listed in this document for ping.

When rpcinfo runs successfully, the output is a list of port numbers and names. For troubleshooting, we are only interested in the exact text of any error messages. Typical successful responses have the following format:

rpcinfo for mars
program vers proto   port
100000    2   tcp    111  portmapper
100000    2   udp    111  portmapper
390103    2   tcp    760
390109    2   tcp    760
390110    1   tcp    760
390103    2   udp    764
390109    2   udp    764
390110    1   udp    764
390113    1   tcp   7937
390105    5   tcp    821
390107    4   tcp    819
390107    5   tcp    819
390104  105   tcp    822