[maemo-users] Missing OS2008 cmdline apps (was Re: how to install OS2007?)

[From: James Sparenberg]

On Sunday 30 December 2007 06:50:05 am hendrik at topoi.pooq.com wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 07:23:15PM -0500, James Knott wrote:
> > Peter Flynn wrote:
> > > Marius Gedminas wrote:
> > >> On Thu, Dec 27, 2007 at 04:43:51PM +0100, Zoran Kolic wrote:
> > >>>>     If you're a new user, I'd forget O7 and go directly to
> > >>>> 08.  There's enough 08 stuff for a new user that you'll
> > >>>> spend a week or more exploring all that's available, and by
> > >>>> then, even more stuff will be available.
> > >>>
> > >>> A lot of useful command line tools have gone to the mist.
> > >>> Hope the same will not get perl, python, ruby...
> > >>
> > >> So, what command-line tools do you miss?  I've got an idle
> > >> scratchbox here.
> > >
> > > ping and traceroute would be useful.
> >
> > Ping is there, but you have to be root to use it.
>
> That's bizarre.  What security implications are there in ping that
> would mean it has to be run only by root?  Forcing people to use
> root when not necessary is itself a security problem.
>
> -- hendrik

Hendrik,  

  Actually ping requires root on all systems.   Since in order to do 
icmp you need to put the nic into a different mode than it runs in  
normally.  The way it is normally done on every other linux distro is 
to do (as root)

chmod u+s /usr/bin/ping   (or /bin/ping on busybox enabled systems)

This will, yes, set ping as setuid root.  If you look at any other 
Linux you see that they all run ping setuid root.

James