[Bryan Henderson <hbryan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>> I put together this patch that allows for tethereal to
>> run as nobody.
>
>If Tethereal is run from the command line, and it's set-uid root, it 
>could just revert to the real user ID - there wouldn't be a need to a 
>"-u" option.
>
>Is the intent here to support running it as a daemon, or something such 
>as that, where the user ID you want it to run as isn't available to it 
>unless you tell it?

If that's the intent, then -u still isn't the best way to do it.  In that 
case, one should invoke tethereal through a shell such as 'su' so as to 
say, "run tethereal as real UID X" and then tethereal would switch to 
effective=real at the appropriate time.  It's simpler that way.

And I agree that tethereal shouldn't wait to be asked before dropping 
unneeded superuser privilege.