Linux daemon vs foreground application

Question

What are the advantages of "daemonizing" a server application over running the program in console mode?

Answer 1

Having it run as a daemon means you can

• log out without loosing the service (which saves some resources)

• do not risk loosing the service from an accidental ctrl-c

• does not offer a minor security risk from someone accessing the terminal, hitting ctrl-c and taking your session

Essentially all 'real' services that are running 'in production' (as opposed to debug mode) run that way.

Answer 2

I think it is preventing from accidentally closing an app and you have one more terminal free. But I personally don't see big difference between "screen" program and "daemonizing"

Answer 3

The main point would be to detach the process from the terminal so that the process does not terminate when the user logs out from the terminal. If you run a program in console mode, it will terminate when you log out, because this is the default behavior for a process when it receives a SIGHUP signal.

Note that there is more to writing a daemon than just calling daemon(3). See How to write a unix daemon for more information.