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DAEMON(8) BSD 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. 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).

DIAGNOSTICS

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, otherwise 0. 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), termios(4), tty(4)

HISTORY

The daemon utility first appeared in FreeBSD 4.7.

BSD August 30, 2001 BSD