A term for a class of
programs running on
UNIX-like
operating systems that are usually loaded at system start-up time that rather than interacting directly with users sit in the background until activated by network requests, hardware activity, or other programs to perform some task. Typically, they are used to provide network services such as file-sharing, but they can also be used to configure hardware (such as
devfsd on some Linux systems), run scheduled tasks (
crond), and a variety of other tasks.
On Microsoft Windows systems, the same function is performed by programs called "services".