samhain does not auto-background itself (to become a daemon) unless explicitely specified in the config file or on the command line. However, normally it runs in single-shot mode if not used as daemon. To cause samhain to enter the main loop while running in the foreground (as required if you want to use daemontool ), you need to start with the option -f or --forever. Note that yule, the server, will always loop.