daemon -- Definition

A daemon  is a program  that runs continually  on your computer.   It waits
quietly  for some  condition to  occur; then it  awakens and  performs some
action (such as redirecting the file to a printer).

For example,  the daemon /etc/cron  wakes up every minute  and checks every
cron file.  If a file contains  a command to be executed at this time, then
cron executes it.

As a general rule, anything that  does not interact directly with users can
be classified as  a daemon.  Daemons do not generally  generate output to a
user's terminal.

Any time you have a resource,  like a printer or data base, to which access
should be controlled, you can use a daemon.

For a list of daemons available  under the COHERENT system, see the Lexicon
entry for Administering COHERENT.

See Also

Using COHERENT

Notes

The function  bedaemon(), which is  included in libmisc, makes  a program a
daemon.  See the article on libmisc for details.

A daemon  may be killed accidentally, or through  an error condition.  When
that occurs, a user may summon  the daemon from the misty deep, but it will
not come.  The superuser root can reinvoke a daemon like any other program.

© 2012 by Stephen A. Ness