... except that that's most definitely not the defining characteristic, and the defining characteristic is rather that the process isn't part of a login session

... except that that's most definitely not the defining characteristic, and the defining characteristic is rather that the process isn't part of a login session, which ironically on modern operating systems with all of the one-way trapdoors that now exist one cannot reach by forking. * https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/606902/5132 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/606902/5132 Thinking that forking makes a dæmon is much the same error as thinking that su drops privileges, it conflates what happend to be a mechanism from years ago with the actual purpose, totally missing that things have changed since (long since, decades ago in fact).