- launchd-dev - lists.macosforge.org

Re: [launchd-dev] Confused about sockets - please help!
by dreamcat four 03 Mar '10

03 Mar '10

Hi, Thanks for the clarification. Incidentally I found a nice pair of examples about it, to illustrate these different kinds of Sockets nesting: Example1: "/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.cups.cupsd.plist" Example2: "/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.cups.cups-lpd.plist" * 1 More Question - About "Listeners": <key>Sockets</key> <dict> <key>Listeners</key> <--- *** this *** Its used very commonly so im going to make it the "default". In the documentation it says that deamon developers should not be sensitive to this thing. *But* does launchd still let the deamon developer to see this key name in the returned results? In which case, (and maybe wrongly but nevertheless), they might end up writing some code that is sensitive to this key name? You know, to find their results from it and whatnot. Therefore: Is it better, worse, or no different to randomly generating the multiple key names as "Listeners314986", "Listeners349q323" etc. ? Heres how i must write my code otherwise, to decide whether or not to throw an error over this: # Method def sockets(keyname="Listeners", &block) # here we create the Sockets xml from whats in "&block" end # Usage # Create Plist scenario 1: sockets do sock_service_name "netbios-ssn" end # => Result: Ok. "Listeners" toplevel key is generated implicitly. # Create Plist scenario 2: sockets do sock_service_name "netbios-ssn" end sockets do sock_service_name "netbios" bonjour ['smb'] end # => Result: Exception error. because implicit "Listeners" key is declared twice. # Create Plist scenario 3: sockets "netbios-ssn" do sock_service_name "netbios-ssn" end sockets "netbios" do sock_service_name "netbios" bonjour ['smb'] end # => Result: Ok. Each Sockets entry has a unique key. # Create Plist scenario 4: sockets[0] do sock_service_name "netbios-ssn" end sockets[1] do sock_service_name "netbios" bonjour ['smb'] end # => Result: Ok. Each Sockets entry has a unique array index. The array of all sockets held within the "Listeners" toplevel key (implicit). # Create Plist scenario 5: sockets do sock_service_name "netbios-ssn" end sockets[0] do sock_service_name "netbios" bonjour ['smb'] end # => Result: Exception error. because implicit "Listeners" key is declared twice. :) dreamcat4 dreamcat4(a)gmail.com On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:45 AM, Quinn <eskimo1(a)apple.com> wrote: > At 20:19 +0000 2/3/10, dreamcat four wrote: >> >> Are all of these different possible structures interchangeable? > > It depends on your perspective. From the perspective of launchd, it doesn't > care which format you use. From the perspective of a launchd daemon > developer, each format offers unique advantages. > > o If the sockets perform distinct functions, the dictionary of dictionaries > approach lets the launchd daemon easily determine which socket is which. > > o If the sockets perform similar functions, Tthe dictionary of array of > dictionaries approach makes that obvious. > > If you're writing a tool to manipulate launchd plists, I'd recommend that > you work hard to preserve this distinction. A launchd daemon that expects > its checkin results to be in one one format is probably going to fail if > they are in the other. > > S+E > -- > Quinn "The Eskimo!" <http://www.apple.com/developer/> > Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware > _______________________________________________ > launchd-dev mailing list > launchd-dev(a)lists.macosforge.org > http://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/launchd-dev >

2 1

Confused about sockets - please help!
by dreamcat four 03 Mar '10

03 Mar '10

Hi, I'm writing a library API to manipulate launchd plists (from Ruby). But after reading and re-reading the man page, still very uncertain whether theres any difference between: Sockets <dictionary of dictionaries... OR dictionary of array of dictionaries...> Are all of these different possible structures interchangeable? (ie meaning the same thing to launchd program?) For example: <key>Sockets</key> <dict> <key>Listeners</key> <array> <dict> <key>SockNodeName</key> <string>::1</string> <key>SockServiceName</key> <string>ipp</string> </dict> <dict> <key>SockNodeName</key> <string>127.0.0.1</string> <key>SockServiceName</key> <string>ipp</string> </dict> <dict> <key>SockPathMode</key> <integer>49663</integer> <key>SockPathName</key> <string>/private/var/run/cupsd</string> </dict> </array> </dict> or <key>Sockets</key> <dict> <key>listener1</key> <dict> <key>SockNodeName</key> <string>::1</string> <key>SockServiceName</key> <string>ipp</string> </dict> <key>listener2</key> <dict> <key>SockNodeName</key> <string>127.0.0.1</string> <key>SockServiceName</key> <string>ipp</string> </dict> <key>listener3</key> <dict> <key>SockPathMode</key> <integer>49663</integer> <key>SockPathName</key> <string>/private/var/run/cupsd</string> </dict> </dict> or <key>Sockets</key> <dict> <key>listener1</key> <array> <dict> <key>SockNodeName</key> <string>::1</string> <key>SockServiceName</key> <string>ipp</string> </dict> </array> <key>listener2</key> <array> <dict> <key>SockNodeName</key> <string>127.0.0.1</string> <key>SockServiceName</key> <string>ipp</string> </dict> </array> <key>listener3</key> <array> <dict> <key>SockPathMode</key> <integer>49663</integer> <key>SockPathName</key> <string>/private/var/run/cupsd</string> </dict> </array> </dict> I'd really love to get an answer here, as its the last thing needed to complete the API interface. Best regards dreamcat4 dreamcat4(a)gmail.com

2 1

Launchd xml DTD?
by dreamcat four 01 Mar '10

01 Mar '10

Hi, Is there a DTD specifically for the launchd.plist format specification? The xml header shows: http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd Which definately *isnt* what im looking for. Tried parsing / grepping the manpage output but that was pretty much a waste of time. Best regards dreamcat4 dreamcat4(a)gmail.com

1 1

WatchPaths
by Errol Sayre 19 Feb '10

19 Feb '10

All, I apologize if this is something that I could have found in the documentation but I'm not seeing it. Additionally, I couldn't find a better place to pose this question than launchd-dev, and this is really more of an end-user question. For a launch agent with multiple watch paths, how does one pass the path that fired the event to the program arguments? Thank you kindly!

3 6

unloading user jobs as root
by Tamás Lustyik - NTRglobal 16 Feb '10

16 Feb '10

Hi, I'm having trouble with unloading jobs launched from /Library/LaunchAgents and since I haven't had success in googling around I decided to ask for help here. I have an agent application which should run in the LoginWindow and Aqua contexts. A proper plist file has been created and works fine, the job loads and unloads automagically when the different sessions are entered/left. Now, the problem is with uninstallation. I have a separate uninstaller application which, at some point, is elevated to have root privileges to perform removal of files etc. Unfortunately, when running as root, launchctl does not seem to access the session of the logged in users, thus making it impossible to unload these already active jobs. I suppose calling launchctl as a regular user wouldn't work either for user sessions other than the current one. Can anyone give me pointers how to solve this? I do have read the Daemonomicon and also the list archives of last year but I might have missed the answer. Thanks, Tamas Lustyik

2 1

launch_msg(): Socket is not connected error in Leopard
by Arun 16 Feb '10

16 Feb '10

Hi All, I have a setup in which when the Mac reboots, i will be launching a script through launchd. This daemon writes multiple plist files in /Library/LaunchAgents and tries to load the same for all the users currently logged in. The loading of the agents is failing with "launch_msg(): Socket is not connected". However if i run the script in Terminal as root user, the error does not come. Any idea why this is happening with launchd triggered script? Thanks Arun KA

3 2

Help in launching a launch daemon
by Arun 05 Feb '10

05 Feb '10

Hi All, I am a newbie to launchd. I have a requirement to launch a system daemon whenever a file is created / modified. Also this daemon should not be launched multiple times, means even if the daemon crashes it should not be launched. Also this daemon shloud not be launched when the system starts. Can anyone help me in writing the launchd plist file satisfying the above. Thanks Arun KA

2 2

Enforce a maximum time that a launchd process can live...
by Michael Ledford 26 Jan '10

26 Jan '10

Hello, I have a process I would like to used launchd to control. Its job is very simple; look for messages that are waiting in a SQLite database and send them synchronously with NSMutableURLRequest via HTTP. The problem I face is occasionally on production machines I have found that the networking request becomes stalled for some reason which causes the process to simply sit waiting. I was hoping that launchd would be able to enforce a maximum time that a process can live using the ExitTimeout key. The documentation isn't very clear to me on this point. At first I took it as this is the maximum length of time the process would live before launchd would send it a SIGKILL. However, it was pointed out to me by someone they believe it is the time between launchd sending a SIGTERM and SIGKILL. This would only occur if the launchd process was stopped or removed and doesn't exit within the specified ExitTimeout causing a SIGKILL to be sent. In the ideal world people would say, "Your problem is a bug and it needs to be fixed." However, in the real world where frameworks are not under my control this isn't an option. In this case I want to work around the problem. I want to specify a maximum amount of time that a process can live and then have it terminated if it exceeds that time. Can I accomplish a process living for a certain amount of time and then being asked to terminate via launchd? If not, what other options do I have? Thanks, Michael

2 3

Re: [launchd-dev] SMJobSubmit( ) fails but no error is returned
by Karl Moskowski 20 Jan '10

20 Jan '10

Thanks to Damien for finding the problem. In case anyone else encounters the same thing, here's the summary. During development, I had manually unloaded the agent using "launchctl unload -w". This had the effect of setting a disabled key under the job's identifier in the launchd database at: /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.NNN/overrides.plist (where NNN is your user ID number, e.g. 501) With that setting in place, SMJobSubmit() returned false, but the outError argument was NULL. Manually editing overrides.plist to remove the offending entry allowed SMJobSubmit() to work. I've filed rdar://7561469 in case anyone else wants to file a bug. ---- Karl Moskowski <kolpanic(a)voodooergonomics.com> Voodoo Ergonomics Inc. <http://voodooergonomics.com/>

1 0

Re: [launchd-dev] SMJobSubmit( ) fails but no error is returned
by Karl Moskowski 20 Jan '10

20 Jan '10

I've narrowed it down a bit. SMJobSubmit( ) fails without an error only on one user account on my work iMac. If I switch to another account, it works fine. The ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ folder looks OK. Maybe something in my home directory is corrupted or has the wrong permissions or ACLs. Any idea where to look? TIA again. ---- Karl Moskowski <kolpanic(a)voodooergonomics.com> Voodoo Ergonomics Inc. <http://voodooergonomics.com/>

2 1