- launchd-dev - lists.macosforge.org

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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Re: [launchd-dev] launchd-dev Digest, Vol 42, Issue 4
by Nehemiah Dacres 28 Dec '10

28 Dec '10

I'm not sure about practice but I wouldn't put the daemon there, I would put it in one of the bin directories like /local/bin or something. Thats a fine place for a kernel extension (/Library/extension) thats where Virtual Box keeps them. I believe Launchd uses the StartInterval directive for this (search for StartInterval in the launchd.plist man page )

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Periodic action performed by a daemon, Where to store daemon?
by eveningnick eveningnick 27 Dec '10

27 Dec '10

Hello I have written an NKE (Network filter kext). According to the ideas of OS X, if i want to have it started everytime the system starts, i need an autostarted daemon, which will load kext every systemboot. I am planning to let the user install (daemon and NKE) using supplied PKG, which provides uninstalling script as well. What is the best place to put the NKE and Daemon in? Is /Library/Extensions/ appropriate path for this? And i have an another question. If i want my daemon to talk to a kext every 10 seconds, what kind of timer and blocking primitives (like events in Windows) could i use? I was thinking that creating a process (which "talks" to kext milliseconds and the shuts down) every 10 seconds is not such a good idea. What is a good practice here? Thanks!

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Problems with SMJobBless
by Per Ejeklint 07 Dec '10

07 Dec '10

I can't figure out what's going wrong. When I try to upgrade an installed tool SMJobBless fails at first run. System log says: Dec 6 18:17:37 iMac-Quattro /usr/libexec/launchdadd[2968]: FAILURE: Failed to check validity of client's code, error reported was The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error -67063.). And from SMJobBless() I get this message: kSMErrorDomainFramework error 4098 Then I just try once again and it works fine. The only difference being that the installed tool (a launch daemon) is not running at second attempt. During first attempt it is running but SMJobRemove successfully terminates it. Everything worked fine last week but not after migrating to a new machine. Any ideas? /Per

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libdispatch threads, blocked SIGINT and child process
by Thomas Clement 03 Dec '10

03 Dec '10

Hello, I have encountered a strange behavior when using libdispatch (OS X 10.6.5). I'm not sure if there is a bug in libdispatch or else what the correct fix is for me. I found myself in the situation of doing a fork/exec/waitpid from a libdispatch thread, the child process waiting for user input, then doing ctrl-c in my Terminal window. I would expect the child process to also be terminated, however the child process is still running, consuming lots of cpu (and its ppid is now 1 which is weird). I have noticed that libdispatch calls pthread_sigmask() when creating new threads blocking many signals. I have found that calling pthread_sigmask() in my dispatch_asynced code to unblock the SIGINT signal fixes the issue (the child process is also terminated when doing a ctrl-c in my Terminal window). You can reproduce the issue using the attached sample code (which uses launchctl as the child process but it could be anything else). You can run the process from the Terminal window (./sigdispatch_br) then doing ctrl-c and watching the child process from a "top". So, what do you guys think? Thanks, Thomas

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AXObserverAddNotification error on OS X 10.5 from an agent. What am I doing wrong?
by eveningnick eveningnick 22 Nov '10

22 Nov '10

Hello Why on OS X 10.5 i can't execute AXObserverAddNotification() from an agent, while it works great being called from a process started using a Terminal? (On OX X 10.6 it works great no matter how i am starting my process - whether it's an agent or a "normal" app)? How could i make it work on Mac OS Leopard as agent as well? I have written a simple application that illustrates the problem i'd run into (below), because no one answered to a "dry theoretical question" i asked few times before :) Here is a code, that reproduces the problem: (the function "pid_t find_process(char *process_name)" returns PID of a process by its name, a file "process.c", contains the implementation of it, you can find it here: http://pastebin.com/b7sUbG4m ) ------------------------------file: main.c------------------------------ #include <stdio.h> #include <CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.h> #include <ApplicationServices/ApplicationServices.h> pid_t find_process(char *process_name); void mycallback(AXObserverRef observer, AXUIElementRef element, CFStringRef notification, void *refcon) { printf("Word Application has been activated!\n"); } int main (int argc, const char * argv[]) { pid_t appPid = find_process("Microsoft Word"); if(appPid==0) { printf("process doesn't exist"); return 1; } AXObserverRef observer; AXError err; err = AXObserverCreate(appPid, mycallback, &observer); if(err!= kAXErrorSuccess) { printf("AXObserverCreate error: %i\n", err); return 1; } AXUIElementRef appElement = AXUIElementCreateApplication(appPid); if(appElement==NULL) { printf("AXUIElementCreateApplication error, returned 0"); } err = AXObserverAddNotification(observer, appElement, kAXApplicationActivatedNotification, NULL); if(err!= kAXErrorSuccess) { printf("AXObserverAddNotification error: %i\n", err); return 1; } CFRunLoopAddSource(CFRunLoopGetCurrent(), AXObserverGetRunLoopSource(observer), kCFRunLoopCommonModes); CFRunLoopRun(); //run runloop indefinitely return 0; } ------------------------------end------------------------------ if you compile that (having added frameworks CoreFoundation and ApplicationServices to the project) and launch it from a terminal, everytime you activate Microsoft Word application, you will get a text "Word Application has been activated" in a terminal window now, if you create a textfile com.test.accessibility.agent.plist, with the following content: ------------------------------com.test.accessibility.agent.plist------------------------------ <?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.test.accessibility.agent</string> <key>Program</key> <string>[HERE SPECIFY AN ABSOLUTE PATH TO THE EXECUTABLE]</string> <key>KeepAlive</key> <true/> </dict> </plist> ---------------------------------------------end------------------------------ and then, execute the command from a terminal to install and launch the agent % launchctl load com.test.accessibility.agent.plist % launchctl start com.test.accessibility.agent in system Console (/Applications/Utilities/Console.app) you will see the following output -----------------output in console--------------- com.test.accessibility.agent[1796] AXObserverAddNotification error: -25204 com.apple.launchd[84] (com.test.accessibility.agent[1799]) Exited with exit code: 1 com.apple.launchd[84] (com.test.accessibility.agent) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds ---------------end--------------- repeating every 10 secs, because of autorelaunch enabled for this agent in plist (don't forget to "%launchctl remove com.test.accessibility.agent" to stop it and delete its plist entry in the end) What causes that? Can i somehow make it work on Mac OS 10.5 as an agent? As i have mnentioned, on OS X 10.6 this is "fixed" (or, rather, changed). Maybe my process, being started by launchd, doesn't have sufficient rights to call this AXObserverAddNotification() function? How can i increase these privileges, and to what level should i increase them? Unfortunately this document http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Accessibility/Referen… doesn't give any information Thank you George

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Re: [launchd-dev] launchd-dev Digest, Vol 41, Issue 5
by Richard Brown 22 Nov '10

22 Nov '10

Per, The method I use is to get the version number of the installed tool and compare it against the version in the app bundle. Since we know that SMJobBless installs the helper executable in /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools, you can create the URL to /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.yourdomain.yourapp.helper and use NSBundle's + bundleWithURL: method and then call - infoDictionary (or similarly use CFBundleCopyInfoDictionaryForURL) to get the helper tool's info dict. You can then query the dictionary for its version, and decide whether to prompt for blessing rights. HTH, Richard On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 10:00, <launchd-dev-request(a)lists.macosforge.org> wrote: > From: Per Ejeklint <ejeklint(a)me.com> > To: launchd-dev(a)lists.macosforge.org > Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:21:07 +0100 > Subject: [launchd-dev] Not calling SMJobBless if not needed? > This is slightly off-topic I guess but the expertise is definitely on this list. :) > > I'm using SMJobBless to install and update a launchd daemon from my app and it works like a charm. Only thing is that the user must authenticate at every launch of the app and not just when the provided daemon is actually newer than the running one. Is there a way work around this with ServiceManagement framework? Or another simple way? I'm new to this part of Mac OS X stuff, so I apologize if I'm posting to the wrong list. > > /Per

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Not calling SMJobBless if not needed?
by Per Ejeklint 15 Nov '10

15 Nov '10

This is slightly off-topic I guess but the expertise is definitely on this list. :) I'm using SMJobBless to install and update a launchd daemon from my app and it works like a charm. Only thing is that the user must authenticate at every launch of the app and not just when the provided daemon is actually newer than the running one. Is there a way work around this with ServiceManagement framework? Or another simple way? I'm new to this part of Mac OS X stuff, so I apologize if I'm posting to the wrong list. /Per

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