portmapd and sshd won't run as daemons

I have a confusing problem where neither portmapd, or sshd will run as
daemons (eg via /etc/rc.d/init.d/portmap or ssh) but will run fine if I
turn on debugging (eg. /sbin/portmap -d or /usr/sbin/sshd -d ) and run
them in a console (as root)

The message that I get when running redhat-config-services is
"xxx is dead, but subsys locked." (if I try to start portmap for
instance from the redhat ui). At boot time, if I enable portmap or sshd
to run, startup hangs and I have to use interactive mode to get the
system up. (I'm pretty certain that this all worked at one point)

I've removed lock files, even moved /var/lock/subsys and created a new
one. I've looked in /var/run for defunct processes.

When running with debug on, they work fine and processes that use them
(like NFS) work fine.

I've looked through /var/log/messages and boot.log but when portmap is
running as a daemon, it doesn't seem to output anything (and when I turn
on debug, it works!)

Questions:
Is there any way to get some more output from portmap when it is running
as a daemon? How can I turn on -v option?

What other processes does portmap depend on (eg. iptables?)

Thanks for your help!

kernel is vmlinux-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl, fedora core1

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.questions.]
On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 16:52:01 -0400, Rob Mitchell
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> I've looked through /var/log/messages and boot.log but when portmap is
> running as a daemon, it doesn't seem to output anything (and when I turn
> on debug, it works!)
>
Are you sure that /var is not full?


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