The djb way begins in earnest with daemontools, a fundamental collection of tools and utilities to start, run, log, and control server processes known as daemons.

Daemons are programs that run as background processes, running continuously for the purpose of providing certain services. Often they listen for incoming network connections, answering specific service requests from other computers, such as for an email exchange, domain name information, or a web page.

A server built in the djb way will usually run many such services, including Bernstein's own qmail, djbdns, and publicfile, as well as server programs from other sources. The daemontools package provides a secure, reliable, and consistent framework for managing all of them.

The daemontools package is a prerequisite for installing and using just about every other package described at this site. A big part of the djb way just means knowing and using daemontools.