launchd.plist(5)

NAME
launchd.plist - System wide and per-user daemon/agent configuration files

DESCRIPTION
This document details the parameters that can be given to an XML property list that can be loaded into launchd with launchctl.

EXPECTATIONS
Daemons or agents managed by launchd are expected to behave certain ways.

A daemon or agent launched by launchd MUST NOT do the following in the process directly launched by launchd:

•   Call daemon(3).
•   Do the moral equivalent of daemon(3) by calling fork(2) and have the parent process exit(3) or _exit(2).

A daemon or agent launched by launchd SHOULD NOT do the following as a part of their startup initialization:

•   Setup the user ID or group ID.
•   Setup the working directory.
•   chroot(2)
•   setsid(2)
•   Close "stray" file descriptors.
•   Change stdio(3) to /dev/null.
•   Setup resource limits with setrusage(2).
•   Setup priority with setpriority(2).
•   Ignore the SIGTERM signal.

A daemon or agent launched by launchd SHOULD:

•   Launch on demand given criteria specified in the XML property list. More information can be found later in this man page.
•   Catch the SIGTERM signal.

XML PROPERTY LIST KEYS
The follow keys can be used to describe the configuration details of your daemon or agent. Property lists are Apple's standard configuration file format. Please see plist(5) for more information. Please note. Property list files are expected to have their name end in ".plist".

Label <string>
This required key uniquely identifies the job to launchd.

Disabled <boolean>
This optional key is used to disable your job. The default is false.

UserName <string>
This optional key specifies the user to run the job as. This key is only applicable when launchd is running as root.

GroupName <string>
This optional key specifies the group to run the job as. This key is only applicable when launchd is running as root. If UserName is set and GroupName is not, the the group will be set to the default group of the user.

inetdCompatibility <dictionary>
The presence of this key specifies that the daemon expects to be run as if it were launched from inetd.

Wait <boolean>
This flag corresponds to the "wait" or "nowait" option of inetd. If true, then the listening socket is passed via the standard in/out/error file descriptors. If false, then accept(2) is called on behalf of the job, and the result is passed via the standard in/out/error descriptors.

LimitLoadToHosts <array of strings>
This configuration file only applies to the hosts listed with this key.

LimitLoadFromHosts <array of strings>
This configuration file only applies to hosts NOT listed with this key.

LimitLoadToSessionType <string>
This configuration file only applies to sessions of the type specified. This key is used in concert with the -S flag to launchctl.

ProgramArguments <array of strings>
This required key maps to the second argument of execvp(3).

Program <string>
This optional key maps to the first argument of execvp(3). If this key is missing, then the first element of the array of strings provided to the ProgramArguments will be used instead.

EnableGlobbing <boolean>
This flag causes launchd to use the glob(3) mechanism to update the program arguments before invocation.

OnDemand <boolean>
This key was used in Mac OS X 10.4 to control whether a job was kept alive or not. The default was true. This key has been deprecated and replaced in Mac OS X 10.5 with the more powerful KeepAlive option.

KeepAlive <boolean or dictionary of stuff>
This optional key is used to control whether your job is to be kept continuously running or to let demand and conditions control the invocation. The default is false and therefore only demand will start the job. The value may be set to true to unconditionally keep the job alive. Alternatively, a dictionary of conditions may be specified to selectively control whether launchd keeps a job alive or not. If multiple keys are provided, launchd ORs them, thus providing maximum flexibility to the job to refine the logic and stall if necessary. If launchd finds no reason to restart the job, it falls back on demand based invocation. Jobs that exit quickly and frequently when configured to be kept alive will be throttled to converve system resources.

SuccessfulExit <boolean>
If true, the job will be restarted as long as the program exits and with an exit status of zero. If false, the job will be restarted in the inverse condition. This key implies that "RunAtLoad" is set to true, since the job needs to run at least once before we can get an exit status.

NetworkState <boolean>
If true, the job will be kept alive as long as the network is up, where up is defined as at least one non-loopback interface being up and having IPv4 or IPv6 addresses assigned to them. If false, the job will be kept alive in the inverse condition.

PathState <dictionary of booleans>
Each key in this dictionary is a file-system path. If the value of the key is true, then the job will be kept alive as long as the path exists. If false, the job will be kept alive in the inverse condition. The intent of this feature is that two or more jobs may create semaphores in the file-system namespace.

RunAtLoad <boolean>
This optional key is used to control whether your job is launched once at the time the job is loaded. The default is false.

RootDirectory <string>
This optional key is used to specify a directory to chroot(2) to before running the job.

WorkingDirectory <string>
This optional key is used to specify a directory to chdir(2) to before running the job.

EnvironmentVariables <dictionary of strings>
This optional key is used to specify additional environmental variables to be setup before running the job.

Umask <integer>
This optional key specifies what value should be passed to umask(2) before running the job. Known bug: Property lists don't support octal, so please convert the value to decimal.

TimeOut <integer>
The recommended time out (in seconds) to pass to the job. If no value is specified, a default time out will be supplied by launchd for use by the job at check in time.

InitGroups <boolean>
This optional key specifies whether the job should have initgroups(3) be called before running the job. The default is false.

WatchPaths <array of strings>
This optional key causes the job to be started if any one of the listed paths are modified.

QueueDirectories <array of strings>
Much like the WatchPaths option, this key will watch the paths for modifications. The difference being that the job will only be started if the path is a directory and the directory is not empty.

StartInterval <integer>
This optional key causes the job to be started every N seconds. If the system is asleep, the job will be started the next time the computer wakes up. If multiple intervals transpire before the computer is woken, those events will be coalesced into one event upon wake from sleep.

StartCalendarInterval <dictionary of integers or array of dictionary of integers>
This optional key causes the job to be started every calendar interval as specified. Missing arguments are considered to be wildcard. The semantics are much like crontab(5). Unlike cron which skips job invocations when the computer is asleep, launchd will start the job the next time the computer wakes up. If multiple intervals transpire before the computer is woken, those events will be coalesced into one event upon wake from sleep.

Minute <integer>
The minute on which this job will be run.

Hour <integer>
The hour on which this job will be run.

Day <integer>
The day on which this job will be run.

Weekday <integer>
The weekday on which this job will be run (0 and 7 are Sunday).

Month <integer>
The month on which this job will be run.

StandardOutPath <string>
This optional key specifies what file should be used for data being sent to stdout when using stdio(3).

StandardErrorPath <string>
This optional key specifies what file should be used for data being sent to stderr when using stdio(3).

Debug <boolean>
This optional key specifies that launchd should adjust its log mask temporarily to LOG_DEBUG while dealing with this job.

WaitForDebugger <boolean>
This optional key specifies that launchd should instruct the kernel to have the job wait for a debugger to attach before any code in the job is executed.

SoftResourceLimits <dictionary of integers>

HardResourceLimits <dictionary of integers>
Resource limits to be imposed on the job. These adjust variables set with setrlimit(2). The following keys apply:

Core <integer>
The largest size (in bytes) core file that may be created.

CPU <integer>
The maximum amount of cpu time (in seconds) to be used by each process.

Data <integer>
The maximum size (in bytes) of the data segment for a process; this defines how far a program may extend its break with the sbrk(2) system call.

FileSize <integer>
The largest size (in bytes) file that may be created.

MemoryLock <integer>
The maximum size (in bytes) which a process may lock into memory using the mlock(2) function.

NumberOfFiles <integer>
The maximum number of open files for this process.

NumberOfProcesses <integer>
The maximum number of simultaneous processes for this user id.

ResidentSetSize <integer>
The maximum size (in bytes) to which a process's resident set size may grow. This imposes a limit on the amount of physical memory to be given to a process; if memory is tight, the system will prefer to take memory from processes that are exceeding their declared resident set size.

Stack <integer>
The maximum size (in bytes) of the stack segment for a process; this defines how far a program's stack segment may be extended. Stack extension is performed automatically by the system.

Nice <integer>
This optional key specifies what nice(3) value should be applied to the daemon.

LowPriorityIO <boolean>
This optional key specifies whether the kernel should consider this daemon to be low priority when doing file system I/O.

MachServices <dictionary of booleans>
This optional key is used to specify Mach services to be registered with the Mach bootstrap sub-system. Each key in this dictionary should be the name of service to be advertised. The value of the key must be a boolean. If the boolean is true, the port is recycled, thus leaving clients to remain oblivious to the demand nature of job. If the value is set to false, clients receive port death notifications when the job lets go of the receive right. The port will be recreated atomically with respect to bootstrap_look_up() calls, so that clients can trust that after receiving a port death notification, the new port will have already been recreated. Setting the value to false should be done with care. Not all clients may be able to handle this behavior. Finally, for the job itself, the values will be replaced with Mach ports at the time of check-in with launchd.

Sockets <dictionary of dictionaries... OR dictionary of array of dictionaries...>
This optional key is used to specify launch on demand sockets that can be used to let launchd know when to run the job. The job must check-in to get a copy of the file descriptors using APIs outlined in launch(3). The keys of the top level Sockets dictionary can be anything. They are meant for the application developer to use to differentiate different which descriptors correspond to which application level protocols (e.g. http vs. ftp vs. DNS...). At check in time, the value of each Sockets dictionary key will be an array of descriptors. Daemon/Agent writers should consider all descriptors of a given key to be to be effectively equivalent, even though each file descriptor likely represents a different networking protocol which conforms to the criteria specified in the job configuration file.

The paramters below are used as inputs to call getaddrinfo(3).

SockType <string>
This optional key tells launchctl what type of socket to create. The default is "stream" and other valid values for this key are "dgram" and "seqpacket" respectively.

SockPassive <boolean>
This optional key specifies whether listen(2) or connect(2) should be called on the created file descriptor. The default is true ("to listen").

SockNodeName <string>
This optional key specifies the node to connect(2) or bind(2) to.

SockServiceName <string>
This optional key specifies the service on the node to connect(2) or bind(2) to.

SockFamily <string>
This optional key can be used to specifically request that "IPv4" or "IPv6" socket(s) be created.

SockProtocol <string>
This optional key specifies the protocol to be passed to socket(2). The only value understood by this key at the moment is "TCP".

SockPathName <string>
This optional key implies SockFamily is set to "Unix". It specifies the path to connect(2) or bind(2) to.

SecureSocketWithKey <string>
This optional key is a variant of SockPathName. Instead of binding to a known path, a securely generated socket is created and the path is assigned to the environment variable that is inherited by all jobs spawned by launchd.

SockPathMode <integer>
This optional key specifies the mode of the socket. Known bug: Property lists don't support octal, so please convert the value to decimal.

Bonjour <boolean or string or array of strings>
This optional key can be used to request that the service be registered with the mDNSResponder(8). If the value is boolean, the service name is inferred from the SockServiceName.

MulticastGroup <string>
This optional key can be used to request that the datagram socket join a multicast group. If the value is a hostname, then getaddrinfo(3) will be used to join the correct multicast address for a given socket family. If an explicit IPv4 or IPv6 address is given, it is required that the SockFamily family also be set, otherwise the results are undefined.

DEPENDENCIES
Unlike many bootstrapping daemons, launchd has no explicit dependency model. Interdependencies are expected to be solved through the use of IPC. It is therefore in the best interest of a job developer who expects dependents to define all of the sockets in the configuration file. This has the added benefit of making it possible to start the job based on demand instead of immediately.

EXAMPLE XML PROPERTY LISTS

The following XML Property List simply keeps "exampled" running continuously:

    <?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.example.exampled</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
    <string>exampled</string>
    </array>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    </dict>
    </plist>

FILES
~/Library/LaunchAgents
    Per-user agents provided by the user.
/Library/LaunchAgents
    Per-user agents provided by the administrator.
/Library/LaunchDaemons
    System wide daemons provided by the administrator.
/System/Library/LaunchAgents
    Mac OS X Per-user agents.
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
    Mac OS X System wide daemons.

SEE ALSO
launchctl(1), launch(3), launchd(8), plist(5)