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DAEMON(8)		FreeBSD	System Manager's Manual		     DAEMON(8)

NAME
     daemon -- run detached from the controlling terminal

SYNOPSIS
     daemon [-cfr] [-p pidfile]	[-u user] command arguments ...

DESCRIPTION
     The daemon	utility	detaches itself	from the controlling terminal and exe-
     cutes the program specified by its	arguments.  Privileges may be lowered
     to	the specified user.

     The options are as	follows:

     -c	     Change the	current	working	directory to the root (``/'').

     -f	     Redirect standard input, standard output and standard error to
	     /dev/null.

     -p	file
	     Write the ID of the created process into the file using the
	     pidfile(3)	functionality.	The program is executed	in a spawned
	     child process while the daemon waits until	it terminates to keep
	     the file locked and removes it after the process exits.  The file
	     owner is the user who runs	the daemon regardless of whether the
	     -u	option is used or not.

     -r	     Supervise and restart the program if it has been terminated.

     -u	user
	     Login name	of the user to execute the program under.  Requires
	     adequate superuser	privileges.

     If	the -p or -r option is specified the program is	executed in a spawned
     child process.  The daemon	waits until it terminates to keep the pid file
     locked and	removes	it after the process exits or restarts the program.
     In	this case if the monitoring daemon receives software termination sig-
     nal (SIGTERM) it forwards it to the spawned process.  Normally it will
     cause the child to	exit followed by the termination of the	supervising
     process after removing the	pidfile.

EXIT STATUS
     The daemon	utility	exits 1	if an error is returned	by the daemon(3)
     library routine, 2	if the pidfile is requested, but cannot	be opened, 3
     if	process	is already running (pidfile exists and is locked), otherwise
     0.

DIAGNOSTICS
     If	the command cannot be executed,	an error message is displayed on stan-
     dard error	unless the -f flag is specified.

SEE ALSO
     setregid(2), setreuid(2), daemon(3), exec(3), pidfile(3), termios(4),
     tty(4)

HISTORY
     The daemon	utility	first appeared in FreeBSD 4.7.

FreeBSD	8.4			 June 4, 2012			   FreeBSD 8.4

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | DIAGNOSTICS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY

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