Navigation Menu

Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@xanoni

xanoni/cheatsheet.md

Forked from masklinn/cheatsheet.md
Created October 10, 2021 06:44
Show Gist options
  • Star 0 You must be signed in to star a gist
  • Fork 0 You must be signed in to fork a gist
  • Save xanoni/3231eae3ccda5f355918e2d2cb2da9bf to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save xanoni/3231eae3ccda5f355918e2d2cb2da9bf to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Download ZIP
launchctl/launchd cheat sheet
Raw
cheatsheet.md

I've never had great understanding of launchctl but the deprecation of the old commands with launchctl 2 (10.10) has been terrible as all resources only cover the old commands, and documentation for Apple utilities is generally disgracefully bad, with launchctl not dissembling.

Mad props to https://babodee.wordpress.com/2016/04/09/launchctl-2-0-syntax/ which contains most details

domains

Internally, launchd has several domains, but launchctl 1 would only ask for service names, inferring the domain based on context. This made for straightforward commands (once you've loaded a plist you just use the service name it specifies) but had rough edge cases or odd behaviours.

Launchctl 2 separates service names, domain targets and service targets:

  • a service target is <domain-target>/<service-name> and used to point to most services
  • a service name is what is specified in the plist file
  • a domain target is a namespace for services, each namespace has specific behaviours associated:
    • system is privileged (runs services as root) and requires root for interaction
    • user/<uid> runs as that user, but does not require that the user be logged in
    • gui/<uid> runs as that user, but is only active when the user is logged in at the GUI

important commands

bootstrap <domain-target> <paths...>

The paths can be plist files, XPC bundles, or directories of them. Each plist or bundle is loaded into the specified domain.

bootout <service-target> | <domain-target> <paths...>

Unloads the specified service(s).

WARNING

The paths are actually optional, you can unload an entire domain, which you probably should not do.

enable <service-target> | disable <service-target>

Marks the service as runnable (or not), allows overriding a Disabled plist key. Behaviour is a bit odd and I haven't looked much into it, you may need to bootstrap a service (it will complain that the service is disabled), enable it, then bootstrap it again.

kickstart <service-target>

Starts a service. -k will kill then restart existing instances.

Supposedly -p will print the service's pid (even if it's already started), doesn't seem to work for me.

print <service-target>

Dumps the service's definition, properties & metadata.

WARNING

The output of print is not officially structured, do not rely either on the format or on the information.

print <domain-target>

Prints the domain's metadata, including but not limited to all services in the domain.

kill <signame | signum> <service-target>

Sends a signal to a service's process (without having to look it up manually).

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment