xref: /freebsd/usr.sbin/daemon/daemon.8 (revision 195fc497a26717b89f6f24b0dd0449d0f2be2acc)

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.\" $FreeBSD$
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.Dd February 19, 2012
.Dt DAEMON 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm daemon
.Nd run detached from the controlling terminal
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl cf
.Op Fl p Ar pidfile
.Op Fl u Ar user
.Ar command arguments ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility detaches itself from the controlling terminal and
executes the program specified by its arguments.
Privileges may be lowered to the specified user.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl c
Change the current working directory to the root
.Pq Dq Pa / .
.It Fl f
Redirect standard input, standard output and standard error to
.Pa /dev/null .
.It Fl p Ar file
Write the ID of the created process into the
.Ar file
using the
.Xr pidfile 3
functionality.
The program is executed in a spawned child process while the
.Nm
waits until it terminates to keep the
.Ar file
locked and removes it after the process exits.
The
.Ar file
owner is the user who runs the
.Nm
regardless of whether the
.Fl u
option is used or not.
If the monitoring
.Nm
receives software termination signal (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.
.It Fl u Ar user
Login name of the user to execute the program under.
Requires adequate superuser privileges.
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
The
.Nm
utility exits 1 if an error is returned by the
.Xr daemon 3
library routine, 2 if the
.Ar pidfile
is requested, but cannot be opened, 3 if process is already running (pidfile
exists and is locked),
otherwise 0.
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
If the command cannot be executed, an error message is displayed on
standard error unless the
.Fl f
flag is specified.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr setregid 2 ,
.Xr setreuid 2 ,
.Xr daemon 3 ,
.Xr exec 3 ,
.Xr pidfile 3 ,
.Xr termios 4 ,
.Xr tty 4
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
utility first appeared in
.Fx 4.7 .