The Service Configurator framework: an extensible architecture for dynamically configuring concurrent, multi-service network daemons

Developing extensible, robust, and efficient network daemons is a challenging task. The authors describe a daemon control framework consisting of automated tools and reusable components that simplify the task of developing, configuring, and reconfiguring concurrent, multi-service network daemons. These daemons contain multiple communication-related services that execute in one or more processes or threads. This framework uses object-oriented design techniques and C++ language features to enhance operating system mechanisms that provide inter-process communication, communication port demultiplexing, explicit dynamic linking, and concurrency. In addition to describing the object-oriented architecture of the daemon control framework, the authors also present an example that illustrates how the framework supports the development of network daemons whose services may be updated and extended without modifying, recompiling, relinking, or restarting existing daemons