Ethereal (packet capture) - as normal user - how?

[a@jenisch.at]

Hi,

I've got a somewhat tricky problem wrt. Ethereal under Debian 3.0R1:
The program works without any problem when run as user "root", but it
doesn't work when running as normal user.

To be exact, as a normal user, when trying to capture packets I don't
see any interfaces available. Sure enough this is because packet
sniffers require the interface to be in promicous mode which can be
done only be root.

I've tried setting ethereal setuid root - doesn't help either, since
ethereal complains that it doesn't want to be run setuid (also this
perfectly makes sense).


So the big question is: How can I run ethereal as normal user?
(without having everybody "su -" before starting ethereal)

BTW: In another Linux-system runnign Redhat 8, whenever I start
ethereal a window pops up asking me for the root-pw, and once entered
ethereal comes up - and allows me to cacture packets

TIA for your help
-ewald