Nginx HTTP Server - Fourth Edition

Daemons and services

The next step is obviously to execute Nginx. However, before doing so, it's important to understand the nature of this application. There are two types of computer application—those that require immediate user input, thus running in the foreground, and those that do not, thus running in the background. Nginx is of the latter type, often referred to as daemon. Daemon names usually come with a trailing d and a couple of examples can be mentioned here—httpd the HTTP server daemon is the name given to Apache under several Linux distributions, named the nameserver daemon, or cron the task scheduler—although, as you will notice, it is not the case for Nginx. When started from the command line, a daemon immediately returns the ...