January 2011 - launchd-dev - lists.macosforge.org

Install and load a launch daemon without a reboot
by Jeremy Reichman 20 Oct '11

20 Oct '11

What is considered the current best practice for installing and then running a launch daemon, while avoiding a reboot? I didn't see exactly what I was looking for in my list archive or found it in any documentation on installation packages. I have reviewed TN2083, specifically the "Starting a Daemon" section. That answers most of my question but it would be helpful to have confirmation. Besides the conditions listed in TN2083, I'd like my installer to behave well when installed to a disk other than the current startup volume. I need to target Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6. It looks as if I'd need to test for the right conditions and then run launchctl to load the property list. Roughly -- not production code -- it looks like I'd need a postinstall and postupgrade script to do the following: # Test if the destination volume for the payload and the root volume path are the same if [ "$3" = "$4" ] ; then # Quick test to see if the script is run by root if [ `/usr/bin/whoami` = "root" ] ; then /bin/launchctl load "$3/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.vendor.launchdaemon.plist" fi fi exit 0 Is that the right approach? Thanks! -- Jeremy

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Understanding bootstrap idea in different versions of MacOS
by eveningnick eveningnick 27 Jan '11

27 Jan '11

Hello I understand that this is not an apple way to respond about obsolete versions of their software. But i am hoping some of launchd developers look through this list, and who are aware of pecularities of their child :) i am trying to launch an agent programmatically (not only automatically when the system is started), but in a certain moment. I mean, a user installs an application, and he is happy having an agent run as soon as an app is installed. as i've been told on this list some time ago, it can be done only by exec'ing "launchctl -w load [plist file path]", as long as OS X does not provide any explicit ways to communicate to per user launchd service and ask it to process a plist file. I assume that launchd "interface" could be retrieved by reading sources of launchctl (i've heard they are available), but my qualification doesnt allow me to do that so far. The problem i've run into was launchctl and launchd acting differently on different versions of OS X, partly because launchctl changed the way it searches for the right launchd instance (so i've been told on this list) from the per-bootstrap to per-user, In archives i found some ways of "talking" to the right instance of launchd - like, specifying "-S" parameter, or using "bslist" param. They seem to work differently not only on OS X 10.5 and 10.6, but even inside 10.5 builds (for example, while on 10.5.6 sudo launchctl load -w myagent.plist launches an agent, on 10.5.4 users get "Socket not connected"). Could you please explain, how to 'talk' to the right launchd and what is the difference in the way of 'talking' in different versions of OS X? Thanx

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overrides.plist denied write access by ACLs
by Thomas Clément 17 Jan '11

17 Jan '11

Hello all, My product installs an agent in /Library/LaunchAgents/ and my application allows the user to enable/disable it. To do that, I'm calling "launchctl load/unload -w" which stores the disabled state in its per-user overrides.plist file. However I'm getting several reports from users for which it doesn't work. It turns out their overrides.plist is denied write access by ACLs. > # cd /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.501 > # ls -ale@ > total 8 > drwx------@ 3 sparker wheel 102 Sep 5 2009 . > com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot 50 > com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot 50 > 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown > drwxr-xr-x 12 root wheel 408 Feb 25 2010 .. > -rw-------@ 1 sparker wheel 376 Feb 13 2010 overrides.plist > com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot 50 > com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot 50 > 0: group:everyone deny write,delete,append,writeattr,writeextattr,chown They are also Time Machine extended attributes which may be related to the whole thing. Have you guys seen this before? Any idea how these ACLs got here? Thanks, Thomas

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Re: [launchd-dev] Stopping and unloading an agent from root-privileged application
by Quinn "The Eskimo!" 14 Jan '11

14 Jan '11

On 14 Jan 2011, at 04:00, Michael_google gmail_Gersten wrote: > So ... in 10.6, if I ssh to a system that I'm on a gui session, then > the ActivityMonitor example will work just fine? I would expect so, but give it a try and let me know (-: > How do I follow links like rdar://problem/5544764 found in that tech note? You can't see Radar bugs, except those that you filed. The technote includes bug numbers because that's the handle we use to refer to the issue and to track its fix. The links are there as a convenience for Apple folks (-: S+E -- Quinn "The Eskimo!" <http://www.apple.com/developer/> Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

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FYI...Lingon 2.2 released (he's back!)
by Don Montalvo 10 Jan '11

10 Jan '11

http://www.peterborgapps.com/lingon/

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Stopping and unloading an agent from root-privileged application
by eveningnick eveningnick 10 Jan '11

10 Jan '11

Hello How could i stop an agent from root-privileged application? if i am working in a terminal, i can type: % launchctl stop my.agent % launchctl unload /Library/LaunchAgents/my.agent.plist if i type % su % launchctl stop my.agent % launchctl unload /Library/LaunchAgents/my.agent.plist i get an error (because this "sudo launchctl" controlls "System domain" launchd instance, not a "user session"'s one) Is there a way to explicitly specify from a Root terminal that i want to stop an agent that is loaded by launchd of the current user session? I tried to specify "sudo launchctl -S Aqua unload /Library/LaunchAgents/my.agent.plist" but it says "Error unloading plist". I need that because i want, among a lot of other work, to stop and unload an agent from a Privileged helper tool. Is there any way to do that? Thanks

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LaunchAgent, fullscreen openGL and NSWindows
by Toby Harris 07 Jan '11

07 Jan '11

Hello list, I have a kiosk-style application that has run on OSX10.5 via a LaunchAgent with KeepAlive property set. Now in 10.6, I am seeing a very odd thing that I have isolated to launch via launchd plist. The app loads successfully, capturing the screen and rendering to a fullscreen openGL context. However, it also can create NSWindows and show these fullscreen instead. This functionality is just not working. I suspect this is a connection to the window server issue, but I have failed to find any similar issues reported on the net, or find the answer in TN2083 (not to say it isn't in there). Here is the plist. I've tried adding LimitToSessionType Aqua and no difference. It lives in ~/Library/LaunchAgents. Any insight, solutions, debugging suggestions most welcome. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>Label</key> <string>com.mpc.MPCScreen</string> <key>RunAtLoad</key> <true/> <key>KeepAlive</key> <true/> <key>Program</key> <string>/Users/mpcscreen/Library/Applications/MPSCREEN.app/Contents/MacOS/MPSCREEN</string> </dict> </plist> Thanks, Toby

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