RenoGeek's Computer Terms Glossary - Daemon

A "daemon" is a program that is constantly running in the background and triggers actions when it receives a certain input.

Some examples, such as a printer daemon sends or "spools" information to a choosen printer when the computer user decides to print a document. A "daemon" could also be running a mail server that routes all incoming mail to mailboxes. Or Web servers use an "HTTP" "daemon" that sends data to users when they wish to access Web pages on a website.

While "daemons" were used first by the Unix operating system, they have also been incorporated into Mac OS X, which is built on top of a Unix-base. As well as most forms of Linux.

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