Linux deamon skeleton from https://stackoverflow.com/a/17955149/7036639

deamon_skeleton.c

// From the excellent answer here : https://stackoverflow.com/a/17955149/7036639
/*
 * daemonize.c
 * This example daemonizes a process, writes a few log messages,
 * sleeps 20 seconds and terminates afterwards.
 */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <syslog.h>

static void skeleton_daemon() {
    pid_t pid;

    /* Fork off the parent process */
    pid = fork();

    /* An error occurred */
    if (pid < 0)
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);

    /* Success: Let the parent terminate */
    if (pid > 0)
        exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);

    /* On success: The child process becomes session leader */
    if (setsid() < 0)
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);

    /* Catch, ignore and handle signals */
    //TODO: Implement a working signal handler */
    signal(SIGCHLD, SIG_IGN);
    signal(SIGHUP, SIG_IGN);

    /* Fork off for the second time*/
    pid = fork();

    /* An error occurred */
    if (pid < 0)
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);

    /* Success: Let the parent terminate */
    if (pid > 0)
        exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);

    /* Set new file permissions */
    umask(0);

    /* Change the working directory to the root directory */
    /* or another appropriated directory */
    chdir("/");

    /* Close all open file descriptors */
    int x;
    for (x = sysconf(_SC_OPEN_MAX); x>=0; x--) {
        close (x);
    }

    /* Open the log file */
    openlog ("firstdaemon", LOG_PID, LOG_DAEMON);
}

int main() {
    skeleton_daemon();

    while (1) {
        //TODO: Insert daemon code here.
        syslog (LOG_NOTICE, "First daemon started.");
        sleep (20);
        break;
    }

    syslog (LOG_NOTICE, "First daemon terminated.");
    closelog();

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

# Check that running state with "grep firstdaemon /var/log/syslog"