services

Services are long-running processes that provide utility to the system. Common services you might find on a Linux system are

• sshd for ssh access
• dhcpd to set the IP address at boot
• getty for connecting the console to a login session
• ntpd for setting the time from the network

These services are generally automated and long running. Let's itemize the actual requirements of a service.

1. services can be started at boot automatically
2. services should make an effort to retry on failure
3. users should be able to start services at runtime
4. services should survive a user logging out

The above are standard for almost every service manager today. Typically init or another service manager handles system services.

• Mac OS X uses launchd
• Ubuntu uses upstard
• RHEL uses systemd
• Windows uses ?
• SmartOS uses SMF

NodeOS uses PalmTree as it's service starter. You can read more about working with it here on the wiki (see Service Starter) and explore it's repository too.