Some of these commands have capabilities that only root user can use, and/or are used for system maintenance, which must be done by root. Such system tools are often in /sbin.
As a regular user, /sbin is not normally in your $PATH environment variable, so this means you need to give the full path to the executable when using it.
When you are root however, /sbin is in the $PATH, so the shell can find the executable without needing to have a full path to it.
Sasha
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