Traceroute-1.4a12

Introduction to Traceroute

The Traceroute package contains a program which is used to display the network route that packets take to reach a specified host. This is a standard network troubleshooting tool. If you find yourself unable to connect to another system, traceroute can help pinpoint the problem.

Installation of Traceroute

Install Traceroute by running the following commands:

cp Makefile.in Makefile.in.bak &&
sed 's/-o bin/-o root/' Makefile.in.bak > Makefile.in &&
./configure --prefix=/usr &&
make &&
make install &&
make install-man

Command explanations

sed 's/-o bin/-o root/'...

Adjusts the Makefile so that the program is installed with user root instead of user bin (which doesn't exist on a default LFS system).

make install: Installs traceroute with UID set to root in the /usr/sbin directory. This makes it possible for all users to execute traceroute. For absolute security, turn off the SUID bit in traceroute's file permissions with the command:

chmod 0755 /usr/sbin/traceroute

The risk is that if a security problem such as a buffer overflow were ever found in the Traceroute code, a regular user on your system could gain root access if the program is SUID root. Removing the SUID permission of course also makes it impossible for users other than root to utilize traceroute, so decide what's right for your individual situation.

Now, to be completely FHS compliant, as is our aim, if you do leave the traceroute binary SUID root, then you should move traceroute to /usr/bin with the following command:

mv /usr/sbin/traceroute /usr/bin

This ensures that the binary is in the path for non-root users.

Contents

The Traceroute package contains traceroute.

Description