A C++ UNIX DAEMON CLASS
 
 
This project was initiated by the need to connect a HP Laserjet 4 directly to our local network. Because we wanted to send data directly to the printer without crossing any central spooler I had to develop a special printer daemon. This daemon is run locally on each machine and provides to the printer spooler daemon a named pipe to print on. This way lpd thinks, it'll print directly to the printer. The daemon instead redirects every input to the network printer. This is achieved by opening a TCP/IP connection on port 9100 of the HP Laserjet 4. 

Writing a deamon is a somewhat unpleasent work. I first had to read a lot of books and other people's sources. Then I developed my own C++ class encapsulating all the things common to all daemons. That is: preventing the user from invoking the daemon twice, etc. As you can imagine, daemons are most of the time much unpleasent fellas... 

The class package is called Aladin but I want to state clearly that the package has been developed long before Walt Disney's Aladdin appeared on the scene. Also note that I use the German spelling of the name Aladin with just one "d". 

Currently there's no documentation available. Unfortunatly I can't provide any extensive help with the daemon class. But by reading the source you should easy figure out how to use the new class. 

Just as the final tip: always treat daemons with extreme care - or some day you'll find yourself sitting in a lamp or a bottle or even a microprocessor! 


And from here you can get the source of the Aladin Class
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Contents: Harald Albrecht (albrecht@igpm.rwth-aachen.de) 
Layout: Harald Albrecht 
Last Change: 97/08/10 (ab)