.TH daemon "" "" Definition
.PC
.PP
A
.I 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).
.PP
For example, the daemon
.B /etc/cron
wakes up every minute and checks every \fBcron\fR file.
If a file contains a command to be executed at this time, then
.BR cron
executes it.
.PP
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.
.PP
Any time you have a resource, like a printer or data base, to which access
should be controlled, you can use a daemon.
.PP
For a list of daemons available under the \*(CO system, see the
Lexicon entry for
.BR "Administering COHERENT" .
.SH "See Also"
.Xr "Using COHERENT" using_coh
.SH Notes
The function
.BR bedaemon() ,
which is included in
.BR libmisc ,
makes a program a daemon.
See the article on
.B libmisc
for details.
.PP
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
.B root
can reinvoke a daemon like any other program.
