l2ping(8) and -f switch

[Alexander Best]

On Mon Mar 28 11, Maksim Yevmenkin wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Alexander Best <arundel at freebsd.org> wrote:
> > On Mon Mar 28 11, Maksim Yevmenkin wrote:
> >> On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 7:04 AM, Iain Hibbert <plunky at rya-online.net> wrote:
> >> > On Mon, 28 Mar 2011, Alexander Best wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> On Mon Mar 28 11, Iain Hibbert wrote:
> >> >> > On Mon, 28 Mar 2011, Alexander Best wrote:
> >> >> >
> >> >> > > thus i believe making the -f switch only accessable to super-users (in
> >> >> > > accordance with ping(8)/ping6(8)) would increase security.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > what stops the user from recompiling l2ping without this restriction?
> >> >>
> >> >> nothing. but what stops him from recompiling ping(8) or ping6(8) without the
> >> >> restriction? still it's there.
> >> >
> >> > AFAIK you need superuser privileges to even send ICMP_ECHO packets, thats
> >> > why ping is traditionally a suid program and making a new binary won't
> >> > help normal users..  I'm guessing that l2ping doesn't have the same
> >> > restrictions?
> >>
> >> Guys,
> >>
> >> first of all thanks for the patch.
> >>
> >> i think one really needs to understand what "flood" really means in
> >> l2ping(8). "flood" ping(8) basically floods the link with icmp echo
> >> requests without waiting for remote system to reply. yes, this is
> >> potentially dangerous and thus its reasonable to require super-user
> >> privileges. "flood" l2ping(8) is NOT the same. all l2ping(8) does is
> >> "flood" mode
> >>
> >> 1) sends l2cap echo request
> >> 2) waits for l2cap echo response (or timeout)
> >> 3) repeats
> >>
> >> in other words, there is no delay between each l2cap echo
> >> request-response transaction. its not really "flood". i'm not sure if
> >> it really worth to go all the way to restricting this. however, if
> >> people think that it should be restricted, i will not object.
> >
> > how about removing the term "flood" from the l2ping(2) man page, if the -f
> > semantics can't actually be called that way?
> 
> that would be fine. l2ping(8) -h calls it
> 
> -f         No delay (sort of flood)
> 
> and l2ping(8) man page calls it
> 
> -f      ``Flood'' ping, i.e., no delay between packets.
> 
> it would be nice to make those consistent :) i'm not sure what the
> best name would be though.

another possibility would be to allow l2ping -i 0 and say that the -f flag is
an alias for that.

> 
> thanks,
> max

-- 
a13x