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

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.

我想澄清一个误解:

Assume that if daemon thread (say B) is created within user thread (say A); then ending of this user thread/parent thread (A) will not end the daemon thread/child thread (B) it has created; provided user thread is the only one currently running. So there is no parent-child relationship on thread ending. All daemon threads (irrespective of where it is created) will end once there is no single live user thread and that causes JVM to terminate. Even this is true for both (parent/child) are daemon threads. If a child thread created from a daemon thread then that is also a daemon thread. This won't need any explicit daemon thread flag setting. Similarly if a child thread created from a user thread then that is also a user thread, if you want to change it, then explicit daemon flag setting is needed before start of that child thread.

答案已经有很多了;然而，也许我可以更清楚地解释这一点，因为当我阅读Daemon Threads时，最初，我有一种感觉，我很好地理解了它;然而，在玩了它并调试了一下之后，我发现了一个奇怪的行为。

我被教导:

如果我想让线程在主线程有序完成执行后立即死亡，我应该将其设置为Diamond。

我尝试了什么:

我从主线程中创建了两个线程，我只将其中一个设置为菱形; 在主线程有序完成执行后，那些新创建的线程都没有退出，但我预计，守护线程应该已经退出; 我浏览了许多博客和文章，到目前为止，我找到的最好、最清晰的定义来自《Java并发实践》一书，它非常清楚地指出:

7.4.2守护线程

Sometimes you want to create a thread that performs some helper function but you don’t want the existence of this thread to prevent the JVM from shutting down. This is what daemon threads are for. Threads are divided into two types: normal threads and daemon threads. When the JVM starts up, all the threads it creates (such as garbage collector and other housekeeping threads) are daemon threads, except the main thread. When a new thread is created, it inherits the daemon status of the thread that created it, so by default any threads created by the main thread are also normal threads. Normal threads and daemon threads differ only in what happens when they exit. When a thread exits, the JVM performs an inventory of running threads, and if the only threads that are left are daemon threads, it initiates an orderly shutdown. When the JVM halts, any remaining daemon threads are abandoned— finally blocks are not executed, stacks are not unwound—the JVM just exits. Daemon threads should be used sparingly—few processing activities can be safely abandoned at any time with no cleanup. In particular, it is dangerous to use daemon threads for tasks that might perform any sort of I/O. Daemon threads are best saved for “housekeeping” tasks, such as a background thread that periodically removes expired entries from an in-memory cache.

传统上，UNIX中的守护进程是那些不断在后台运行的进程，就像Windows中的服务一样。

Java中的守护线程是不阻止JVM退出的线程。特别是当只剩下守护线程时，JVM将退出。您可以通过调用线程上的setDaemon()方法来创建一个。

读取Daemon线程。

Java有一种特殊的线程，称为守护线程。

非常低的优先级。 仅在同一程序没有其他线程正在运行时执行。 当守护线程结束时，JVM结束程序，完成这些线程 程序中运行的唯一线程。

守护线程用于什么?

通常用作普通线程的服务提供者。 通常有一个等待服务请求或执行线程任务的无限循环。 他们不能做重要的工作。(因为我们不知道它们什么时候会有CPU时间，如果没有任何其他线程在运行，它们可以在任何时间完成。)

这类线程的一个典型示例是Java垃圾收集器。

有更多的…

在调用start()方法之前，只能调用setDaemon()方法。线程运行后，就不能修改它的守护进程状态。 使用isDaemon()方法检查线程是守护线程还是用户线程。