sed 's/-o bin/-o root/' : Adjusts the Makefile so that the program is installed with user root instead of user bin (which doesn't exist on a default LFS system). make install: Installs traceroute setuid root in the /usr/sbin directory. This makes it possible for all users to execute traceroute. For absolute security, turn off the setuid bit in traceroute's file permissions with the command chmod 0755 /usr/sbin/traceroute The risk is that if a security problem such as a buffer overflow were ever found in the traceroute code, a regular user on your system could gain root access if the program is setuid root. Removing the setuid permission of course also makes it impossible for users other than root to utilize traceroute, so decide what's right for your individual situation. Now, to be completely FHS compliant, as is our aim, if you do leave the traceroute binary setuid root, then you should move traceroute to /usr/bin with the following command: mv /usr/sbin/traceroute /usr/bin This ensures that the binary is in the path for non-root users.