From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
Date: 2003-09-02T07:49:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Binding server to port < 1024

On Mon, Sep 01, 2003 at 10:30:23PM +0000, Andreas Schwarz wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have written a NNTP server in Ruby. How can I bind it to a port < 1024
> without having to run it as root (Linux)?

You can't.  Only root can bind to ports under 1024 on *nix.
The way to do it safely is for the program to bind to the port early and then 
set its effective user id to something else before doing anything else.

-Mark