[launchd-dev] How to on demand launch for configurable port number?

[Mike Fischer]

Am 01.04.2008 um 13:34 schrieb Quinn <eskimo1 at apple.com>:
> At 22:15 +0100 29/3/08, Mike Fischer wrote:
>> Currently I'd immagine that I need to 'launchctl stop' the service,
>> modify the associated launchd.plist to reflect the currently
>> configured port and then 'launchctl start' the service.
>
> You would probably have to "unload" and "load", rather than "stop"
> and "start".  Stop/start just affects the running process, so launchd
> will not reconsult the relevant plist file.

Right, Thanks! (I'm still learning my way around the launchd world  
and its terminology.)

So "unload" makes launchd completely forget about a service while  
"load" does the reverse?


>> Unless of course there is a better way that doesn't involve changing
>> the launchd.plist?
>
> I can't think of one.

OK.


>> Not sure if this is relevant but the daemon does not use Bonjour at
>> the moment to advertise its service. That could be added though (and
>> might be a good idea for other reasons).
>
> If you used Bonjour, you could just bind to a ephemeral port
> ("SockServiceName" == "0") and find the service, which includes the
> port, using Bonjour.  No need for fixed ports at all.

Sounds like a good idea. I'll have to look into this. Of course the  
clients would then need to rely on Bonjour as well which might be  
difficult to achieve as the Mac OS X port of the client software is  
only a small part of their customer base. I'm not sure I can convince  
them to use Bonjour on the other platforms. There may also be issues  
with Bonjour normally being Link-Local in situations where the end- 
users have more complex networks with multiple subnets. Using Dynamic  
DNS Update might be difficult to implement in the field. But all this  
is OT on this list I guess...


Thanks for your time and insight!


Mike
-- 
Mike Fischer         Softwareentwicklung, EDV-Beratung
                                     Schulung, Vertrieb
Web: <http://homepage.mac.com/mike_fischer/index.html>
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