I had to write as part of a program the ability to ping other machines for some kind of diagnosics.

Disseminating the ping code and using it mine, I managed to get the ping working how i wanted, but only under root access, which i really didn't want to permanently use.

Searching the net I saw something about capabilities and CAP_NET_RAW, but couldn't find anywhere which explained what the hell they were or how to use it. I also could find anywhere else which had a workaround for it.

Then i though a bit laterally... if ping could why can't my program?
simple, copy the ping properties over using chmod

chmod --reference=/bin/ping <your exec>

Bingo! worked a charm

or you could just set up a socket which doesn't need root access:

s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_ICMP);

doh!

What you are doing is setting the program to be setuid
you can do this with chmod +s. Just remember to be
very careful with setuid programs because whoever
uses that program effectovely *is* root for the
duration of the program so if there are any bugs bad
things can happen.