`service portmap restart` doesn't restart portmap

[Remi Broemeling]

Binary package hint: portmap

I wanted to force portmap to listen only on the local interface, so I edited /etc/default/portmap and uncommented the OPTIONS line, so that my file looks like this:

# Portmap configuration file
#
# Note: if you manually edit this configuration file,
# portmap configuration scripts will avoid modifying it
# (for example, by running 'dpkg-reconfigure portmap').

# If you want portmap to listen only to the loopback
# interface, uncomment the following line (it will be
# uncommented automatically if you configure this
# through debconf).
OPTIONS="-i 127.0.0.1"

Then, I restarted portmap with `sudo portmap restart`:

# sudo service portmap restart
portmap start/running, process 14948

... however, I found that portmap was still listening globally, it hadn't picked up my change to /etc/default/portmap:

# ps afxv | grep portmap | grep -v grep
14948 ? Ss 0:00 0 17 8230 496 0.1 portmap

... so I restart portmap again:

# sudo service portmap restart
portmap start/running, process 14948

... at which point I noticed that no matter how many times I restart portmap, the PID didn't change:

# sudo service portmap restart
portmap start/running, process 14948

... so then I restarted portmap the old-fashioned way:

# sudo service portmap stop
portmap stop/waiting
# sudo service portmap start
portmap start/running, process 19421

... and, behold it had a new PID and had picked up the defaults change properly:

# ps afxv | grep portmap | grep -v grep
19421 ? Ss 0:00 0 17 8230 624 0.2 portmap -i 127.0.0.1

... roughly speaking, `service portmap restart` doesn't do what it claims to. At all -- it seemed like a no-op on my system, although perhaps it's sending a HUP or something? In any event, it's not doing what it is supposed to.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

This is a function of the service command, not of the portmap package. Reassigning.

[Clint Byrum (clint-fewbar)]

Tried on 12.04, 'service portmap restart' does seem to work. Also /etc/default/portmap is not used and nowhere to be found.

With no confirmations, I wonder if this was just a local issue.

Remi, I'm going to close this bug report, if you can provide the exact version of the portmap package you have installed, and a copy of /etc/init/portmap.conf, please re-open (just change the status back to New).