Glossary of Data Communications TermsCourtesy Enterprise-Wide Computing, Inc. |
Term:
daemon
Definition: a UNIX program that is invisible to users but provides important system services. Daemons manage everything from paging to networking t notification of incoming mail. BSD UNIX has many different daemons: wihtout counting precisely, there are something like two dozen. Daemons normally spend most of their time 'sleeping' or waiting for something to do, so that they do not account for a lot of CPU load. |