2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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dragon
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. [MIT] A program similar to a daemon , except that it is not invoked at
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all, but is instead used by the system to perform various secondary tasks. A
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typical example would be an accounting program, which keeps track of who is
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logged in, accumulates load-average statistics, etc. Under ITS, many
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terminals displayed a list of people logged in, where they were, what they
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were running, etc., along with some random picture (such as a unicorn,
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Snoopy, or the Enterprise), which was generated by the name dragon. Usage:
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rare outside MIT under Unix and most other OSes this would be called a
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background demon or daemon. The best-known Unix example of a dragon is cron
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(1). At SAIL, they called this sort of thing a phantom. Prev Up Next Dr.
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