ipset: how to run non-root

[Mike Wright <xktnniuymlla@mailinator.com>]

Hi all,

I'm trying to use ipset from a php script on an apache server.

ipset requires root user in order to execute, but the webserver is 
running as apache.  suexec is not a possibility because it won't execute 
programs with root permissions.  It is possible to have a cron job 
perform the task but that introduces a time delay.
I've tried changing ownership of ipset to apache:apache but that didn't 
work.  Still received the "must be root" warning.
I looked into the source of ipset.c but it seems like the socket() call 
must be done as root, and I don't know how to hack around that.
Does anybody know how I might accomplish this?

Thanks,
Mike Wright