How Do I Resolve The Error Message "Failed - X-plugin must be run either as root or with CAP_NET_RAW capability set."?

Take the following example, I started/instantiated my Netprobe binary using an account that is not root/privileged, jleon

Which produced the following message via the samplingStatus field in my X-services metric view

To run the setcap command and bestow the CAP_NET_RAW capability set on the Netprobe binary, ensure that your Linux OS version is 2.6.24 or above.

While the Netprobe instance is still up, I ran the setcap command against the Netprobe binary, but in doing so it did not effect change to the metrics view, it would still flash the FAILED message. To make the change effective, you MUST restart the Netprobe instance after running the setcap command.

When the privileges of netprobe is raised (e.g. via setcap/setuid), the runtime loader of Linux (ld.so) will not be able to load the libraries from the <netprobe directory>/lib64, as it will ignore RPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH. This is the way ld.so has been designed.

In order for the libraries to be loaded, the path to the lib64 folder has to be added to the trusted paths of ld.so. This can be done by following the link below.

https://resources.itrsgroup.com/docs/geneos/Netprobe/general/netprobe_user_guide.html#running-netprobe-under-elevated-privileges-in-linux

After Netprobe restart, my X-Ping and X-Services metrics are now working;