Not to be too picky, but your ping command almost certainly _does_ require root permissions.
It's because for ICMP 'echo replies' to get back to the program, it effectively has to snoop the interface - there's absolutely no state in ICMP, so it just has to listen to see if it gets something that matches.
Of course, since it's a compiled binary that's _generally_ trusted, that's not a huge problem. Course, you could probably just do a system("ping -c 1 $host");(syntax dependant on OS) and grep for 'bytes from'.
--
It's not pessimism if there is a worse option, it's not paranoia when they are and it's not cynicism when you're right.
| [reply]
[d/l] |
Not to be too picky, but your ping command almost certainly _does_ require root permissions.
Yes, ping needs root privileges and yes, blm's statement about the "binary ping command that does not need root level permissions" suggested otherwise. However, I think what he meant is that a user usually doesn't have to have root privs to execute ping. This is true because ping generally has its setuid bit on and is owned by root.
-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";
| [reply] |
blm: Thanks for the suggestion, btw!
Originally I tried parsing the output directly from /bin/ping but the script spewed an error about execute permissions of ping from within the script. THAT's why I had pursued Net::Ping, though only the ICMP worked as root.
I tried Net::Ping::External and it worked like a charm, no setuid bit or anything needed. Worked sweet. Thanks again. | [reply] |
