Persistent Daemon

Default behavior

By default on Linux systems, the dxflow daemon operates as a user service tied to your active login session. When you log out, the service automatically stops, preventing it from running persistently in the background.

Platform support

The --daemon flag is supported on:

Starting the daemon

# Start as background daemon
dxflow boot up --daemon

# Start with additional options
dxflow boot up --daemon --https --console

The daemon reports the service it installed, the command that follows its logs, and the addresses it answers on:

Engine successfully daemonized (use 'dxflow boot down' command to stop)
● Daemon
  Service      systemd
  Logs         journalctl --user -u dxflow -f
● Server
  Socket       ~/.dxflow/unix.sock
  HTTPS        https://127.0.0.1:443  (bound to 0.0.0.0)
● Console
  Address      https://127.0.0.1:443  (open in a browser)

Enabling persistence

To ensure the dxflow daemon service persists across user sessions and continues running after logout on Linux, enable user lingering:

sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

This command allows your user services to start at boot time and remain active even when you're not logged in, effectively making them behave like system services while maintaining user-level permissions.

Managing the daemon

Stop the daemon

dxflow boot down

Check daemon status

# SystemD (most Linux distributions) — user service
systemctl --user status dxflow

# OpenRC (Alpine, Gentoo)
rc-service dxflow status

View daemon logs

# Both init systems write to /tmp
tail -f /tmp/dxflow.out
tail -f /tmp/dxflow.err

# SystemD also has the user journal
journalctl --user -u dxflow -f

On macOS and Windows, run the engine in the foreground and keep it alive with screen, tmux, or your platform's own service manager.