[launchd-dev] LaunchDaemon unable to launch and causing messages in log

[Quinn]

I thought I'd close the loop on this old thread...

At 22:48 +0530 12/9/08, pavan kumar wrote:
>I did a comparison between the machines where this plist is working 
>and non working machine but I dont see any specific differences 
>otherthan, there are three more groups like 
>com.apple.sharepoint.group.3, com.apple.sharepoint.group.4, 
>com.apple.sharepoint.group.5. But these seems to be linked with the 
>filesharing groups. Can there be any other reasons to get this 
>error? Also could you please tell me what exactly the error mean?

Another developer was experiencing this problem and they opened a DTS 
tech support incident to get to the bottom of it.

<http://developer.apple.com/technicalsupport/index.html>

It turns out that this is a bug in the system 
<rdar://problem/6430085>.  You will get this error if you create a 
launchd property list that specifies a GroupName /and/ InitGroups is 
true (either explicitly or by default on 10.5 and later) /and/ the 
root user is in 16 or more groups.

When you create a new user via the Accounts preferences panel, we add 
a sharing group (of the form "com.apple.sharepoint.group.X") for that 
user.  The root user is a member of each sharing group, so adding 5 
sharing groups puts root's membership at 16 groups.

My initial suggestion for working around this is to add the 
InitGroups == false property to your launchd property list.  This 
will prevent launchd calling <x-man-page://3/initgroups>, which will 
prevent the bug.  However, you will lose a fix for an obscure corner 
case related to setuid programs revealed by the UNIX '03 compliance 
efforts (<rdar://problem/4616864> from <rdar://problem/3960809>).

Share and Enjoy
-- 
Quinn "The Eskimo!"                    <http://www.apple.com/developer/>
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware