Best way to make a shell script daemon?

I'm wondering if there is a better way to make a daemon that waits for something using only sh than:

#! /bin/sh
trap processUserSig SIGUSR1
processUserSig() {
  echo "doing stuff"
}

while true; do
  sleep 1000
done

In particular, I'm wondering if there's any way to get rid of the loop and still have the thing listen for the signals.

Just backgrounding your script (./myscript &) will not daemonize it. See http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/programmer/faq/, section 1.7, which describes what's necessary to become a daemon. You must disconnect it from the terminal so that SIGHUP does not kill it. You can take a shortcut to make a script appear to act like a daemon;

nohup ./myscript 0<&- &>/dev/null &

will do the job. Or, to capture both stderr and stdout to a file:

nohup ./myscript 0<&- &> my.admin.log.file &

Redirection explained (see bash redirection)

0<&- closes stdin
&> file sends stdout and stderr to a file

However, there may be further important aspects that you need to consider. For example:

You will still have a file descriptor open to the script, which means that the directory it's mounted in would be unmountable. To be a true daemon you should chdir("/") (or cd / inside your script), and fork so that the parent exits, and thus the original descriptor is closed.
Perhaps run umask 0. You may not want to depend on the umask of the caller of the daemon.

For an example of a script that takes all of these aspects into account, see Mike S' answer.

Some of the top-upvoted answers here are missing some important parts of what makes a daemon a daemon, as opposed to just a background process, or a background process detached from a shell.

This http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/programmer/faq/ describes what is necessary to be a daemon. And this Run bash script as daemon implements the setsid, though it misses the chdir to root.

The original poster's question was actually more specific than "How do I create a daemon process using bash?", but since the subject and answers discuss daemonizing shell scripts generally, I think it's important to point it out (for interlopers like me looking into the fine details of creating a daemon).

Here's my rendition of a shell script that would behave according to the FAQ. Set DEBUG to true to see pretty output (but it also exits immediately rather than looping endlessly):

#!/bin/bash
DEBUG=false

# This part is for fun, if you consider shell scripts fun- and I do.
trap process_USR1 SIGUSR1

process_USR1() {
    echo 'Got signal USR1'
    echo 'Did you notice that the signal was acted upon only after the sleep was done'
    echo 'in the while loop? Interesting, yes? Yes.'
    exit 0
}
# End of fun. Now on to the business end of things.

print_debug() {
    whatiam="$1"; tty="$2"
    [[ "$tty" != "not a tty" ]] && {
        echo "" >$tty
        echo "$whatiam, PID $$" >$tty
        ps -o pid,sess,pgid -p $$ >$tty
        tty >$tty
    }
}

me_DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
me_FILE=$(basename $0)
cd /

#### CHILD HERE --------------------------------------------------------------------->
if [ "$1" = "child" ] ; then   # 2. We are the child. We need to fork again.
    shift; tty="$1"; shift
    $DEBUG && print_debug "*** CHILD, NEW SESSION, NEW PGID" "$tty"
    umask 0
    $me_DIR/$me_FILE XXrefork_daemonXX "$tty" "$@" </dev/null >/dev/null 2>/dev/null &
    $DEBUG && [[ "$tty" != "not a tty" ]] && echo "CHILD OUT" >$tty
    exit 0
fi

##### ENTRY POINT HERE -------------------------------------------------------------->
if [ "$1" != "XXrefork_daemonXX" ] ; then # 1. This is where the original call starts.
    tty=$(tty)
    $DEBUG && print_debug "*** PARENT" "$tty"
    setsid $me_DIR/$me_FILE child "$tty" "$@" &
    $DEBUG && [[ "$tty" != "not a tty" ]] && echo "PARENT OUT" >$tty
    exit 0
fi

##### RUNS AFTER CHILD FORKS (actually, on Linux, clone()s. See strace -------------->
                               # 3. We have been reforked. Go to work.
exec >/tmp/outfile
exec 2>/tmp/errfile
exec 0</dev/null

shift; tty="$1"; shift

$DEBUG && print_debug "*** DAEMON" "$tty"
                               # The real stuff goes here. To exit, see fun (above)
$DEBUG && [[ "$tty" != "not a tty" ]]  && echo NOT A REAL DAEMON. NOT RUNNING WHILE LOOP. >$tty

$DEBUG || {
while true; do
    echo "Change this loop, so this silly no-op goes away." >/dev/null
    echo "Do something useful with your life, young padawan." >/dev/null
    sleep 10
done
}

$DEBUG && [[ "$tty" != "not a tty" ]] && sleep 3 && echo "DAEMON OUT" >$tty

exit # This may never run. Why is it here then? It's pretty.
     # Kind of like, "The End" at the end of a movie that you
     # already know is over. It's always nice.

Output looks like this when DEBUG is set to true. Notice how the session and process group ID (SESS, PGID) numbers change:

<shell_prompt>$ bash blahd

*** PARENT, PID 5180
  PID  SESS  PGID
 5180  1708  5180
/dev/pts/6
PARENT OUT
<shell_prompt>$ 
*** CHILD, NEW SESSION, NEW PGID, PID 5188
  PID  SESS  PGID
 5188  5188  5188
not a tty
CHILD OUT

*** DAEMON, PID 5198
  PID  SESS  PGID
 5198  5188  5188
not a tty
NOT A REAL DAEMON. NOT RUNNING WHILE LOOP.
DAEMON OUT

# double background your script to have it detach from the tty
# cf. http://www.linux-mag.com/id/5981 
(./program.sh &) &

Use your system's daemon facility, such as start-stop-daemon.

Otherwise, yes, there has to be a loop somewhere.

Best way to make a shell script daemon?

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