Re: Got root?

[Jim Breton <jamesb-debian@alongtheway.com>]

On Sun, Apr 29, 2001 at 07:19:06AM -0400, Sunny Dubey wrote:
> I know that UNIX does it so that normal users can't seem like legit and 
> important services, but there surely must be some better way of delegating a 
> port below 1024 to a deamon.

Well, at least on Linux, and with the right set of tools, one can do
this using the kernel's capabilities.  (Although I haven't touched the
stuff much yet myself.)

If you have a need to do this now and don't want to play with kernel
caps then you might try the "authbind" package.  I have used it before
and it works!


Package: authbind
Priority: optional
Section: utils
Installed-Size: 42
Maintainer: Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Architecture: i386
Version: 1.1.5.1
Depends: libc6
Filename: dists/potato/main/binary-i386/utils/authbind_1.1.5.1.deb
Size: 14216
MD5sum: 9edd71256e67889c8a0964bb8ddf93d7
Description: Allows non-root programs to bind() to low ports
 This package allows a package to be started as non-root but
 still bind to low ports, without any changes to the application.