npc.statd: random ports, by default?

[Daniel Allen]

I've got NFS running on a batch of ubuntu hosts, and I've noticed that
by default, statd and mountd will choose a random TCP port.  What
range are those ports chosen from?  Does portmapper ignore
/etc/services named ports, or are those fair game too?  I couldn't
really see an answer from portmapper/statd/mountd manpages.

I'm trying to diagnose a problem where another host thought this
machine was running a "swat" service, on port 901; apparently because
statd was using it.  Is this more or less acceptable  behaviour?

I'm curious why these services use random ports, instead of having
them assigned (if there's a good online resource that would explain
this, I'd be happy to know about it too.  I was browsing the linux-NFS
howto, http://nfs.sourceforge.net/nfs-howto/, but it seems a bit
out-of-date).

Thanks very much,

Daniel