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How is ping for non-root user implemented on Linux distros?

I was browsing through the code for ping form iputils package for Linux.

I noticed that ping uses raw sockets SOCK_RAW, which any userspace application requires root privilege to use.

How do the developers of Linux distros manage to provide the ping command for non-root users ?

Solution

  • The ping executable is setuid root:

    $ ls -l /bin/ping
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 35712 Nov  8  2011 /bin/ping