守护线程就像一个服务提供者，为运行在与守护线程相同进程中的其他线程或对象提供服务。守护线程用于后台支持任务，只有在正常线程执行时才需要守护线程。如果正常线程不运行，其余线程是守护线程，则解释器退出。

例如，HotJava浏览器使用最多4个名为“Image Fetcher”的守护线程从文件系统或网络中为任何需要的线程获取图像。

守护线程通常用于为应用程序/applet执行服务(例如加载“fiddley bits”)。用户线程和守护线程之间的核心区别在于，JVM只会在所有用户线程都终止时关闭程序。当不再有任何用户线程在运行(包括执行主线程)时，守护线程将由JVM终止。

setDaemon(真/假)?此方法用于指定一个线程是守护线程。

公共boolean isDaemon() ?此方法用于确定线程是否是守护线程。

Eg:

public class DaemonThread extends Thread {
    public void run() {
        System.out.println("Entering run method");

        try {
            System.out.println("In run Method: currentThread() is" + Thread.currentThread());

            while (true) {
                try {
                    Thread.sleep(500);
                } catch (InterruptedException x) {}

                System.out.println("In run method: woke up again");
            }
        } finally {
            System.out.println("Leaving run Method");
        }
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Entering main Method");

        DaemonThread t = new DaemonThread();
        t.setDaemon(true);
        t.start();

        try {
            Thread.sleep(3000);
        } catch (InterruptedException x) {}

        System.out.println("Leaving main method");
    }

}

输出:

C:\java\thread>javac DaemonThread.java

C:\java\thread>java DaemonThread
Entering main Method
Entering run method
In run Method: currentThread() isThread[Thread-0,5,main]
In run method: woke up again
In run method: woke up again
In run method: woke up again
In run method: woke up again
In run method: woke up again
In run method: woke up again
Leaving main method

C:\j2se6\thread>

Daemon thread is like daemon process which is responsible for managing resources,a daemon thread is created by the Java VM to serve the user threads. example updating system for unix,unix is daemon process. child of daemon thread is always daemon thread,so by default daemon is false.you can check thread as daemon or user by using "isDaemon()" method. so daemon thread or daemon process are basically responsible for managing resources. for example when you starting jvm there is garbage collector running that is daemon thread whose priority is 1 that is lowest,which is managing memory. jvm is alive as long as user thread is alive,u can not kill daemon thread.jvm is responsible to kill daemon threads.

守护线程和用户线程。通常程序员创建的所有线程都是用户线程(除非你指定它为守护线程或者你的父线程是守护线程)。用户线程通常用于运行我们的程序代码。除非所有用户线程都终止，否则JVM不会终止。

下面是一个示例，用于测试在jvm由于不存在用户线程而退出时守护线程的行为。

请注意下面输出的倒数第二行，当主线程退出时，守护线程也死了，并且没有在finally块中打印finally executed9语句。这意味着如果由于不存在用户线程而导致JVM退出，守护线程finally块内关闭的任何i/o资源都不会被关闭。

public class DeamonTreadExample {

public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {

    Thread t = new Thread(() -> {
        int count = 0;
        while (true) {
            count++;
            try {
                System.out.println("inside try"+ count);
                Thread.currentThread().sleep(1000);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                e.printStackTrace();
            } finally {
                System.out.println("finally executed"+ count);
            }
        }
    });
    t.setDaemon(true);
    t.start();

    Thread.currentThread().sleep(10000);
    System.out.println("main thread exited");
  }
}

输出

inside try1
finally executed1
inside try2
finally executed2
inside try3
finally executed3
inside try4
finally executed4
inside try5
finally executed5
inside try6
finally executed6
inside try7
finally executed7
inside try8
finally executed8
inside try9
finally executed9
inside try10
main thread exited

守护线程是在进程的其他非守护线程仍在运行时在后台运行的线程。因此，当所有非守护进程线程完成时，守护进程线程将终止。非守护进程线程的一个例子是运行Main的线程。 通过在线程启动之前调用setDaemon()方法，将线程设置为守护进程

更多参考:Java中的守护进程线程

守护进程线程通常被称为“服务提供者”线程。这些线程不应该用来执行程序代码，而应该用来执行系统代码。这些线程与您的代码并行运行，但JVM可以随时终止它们。当JVM没有发现用户线程时，它将停止用户线程，所有守护进程线程立即终止。我们可以使用以下方法将非守护线程设置为守护线程:

setDaemon(true)