DAEMON(8) MidnightBSD System Manager’s Manual DAEMON(8)

NAME

daemon — run detached from the controlling terminal

SYNOPSIS

daemon [−cf] [−p pidfile] command arguments ...

DESCRIPTION

The daemon utility detaches itself from the controlling terminal and executes the program specified by its arguments.

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 pidfile(3) functionality. Note, that the file will be created shortly before the process is actually executed, and will remain after the process exits (although it will be removed if the execution fails).

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 standard error unless the −f flag is specified.

SEE ALSO

daemon(3), exec(3), pidfile(3), termios(4), tty(4)

HISTORY

The daemon utility first appeared in FreeBSD 4.7.

MidnightBSD 0.3 August 30, 2001 MidnightBSD 0.3