For a project I'm working on I have to ping many hosts from a Java program: I could to run Java as root or I could fork external executables like fping (http://fping.org), but I don't like these options, so I wrote patd (/patd). (...)

pat (/patd/pat.html) sends ping or traceroute commans to patd (/patd). (...)

patd (/patd) is a daemon to ping or traceroute remote hosts.
It is a daemon that runs without root privileges listening on a TCP port for hosts to check.
It receive commands listening on a TCP port and returns the results to the same connection.
patd (/patd) is usefull in situation where you cannot send native ICMP packet, for example from a Java program. (...)