.Dd 1 May, 2009
.Dt launchctl 1
.Os Darwin
.Sh NAME
.Nm launchctl
.Nd Interfaces with launchd
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Ar subcommand Op Ar arguments ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
interfaces with
.Nm launchd
to load, unload daemons/agents and generally control
.Nm launchd .
.Nm
supports taking subcommands on the command line, interactively or even redirected from standard input.
These commands can be stored in
.Nm $HOME/.launchd.conf
or
.Nm /etc/launchd.conf
to be read at the time
.Nm launchd
starts.
.Sh SUBCOMMANDS
.Bl -tag -width -indent
.It Xo Ar load Op Fl wF
.Op Fl S Ar sessiontype
.Op Fl D Ar domain
.Ar paths ...
.Xc
Load the specified configuration files or directories of configuration files.
Jobs that are not on-demand will be started as soon as possible.
All specified jobs will be loaded before any of them are allowed to start.
Note that per-user configuration files (LaunchAgents) must be owned by the user
loading them. All system-wide daemons (LaunchDaemons) must be owned by root. Configuration files
must not be group- or world-writable. These restrictions are in place for security reasons,
as allowing writability to a launchd configuration file allows one to specify which executable
will be launched.
.Pp
Note that allowing non-root write access to the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons directory WILL render your system unbootable.
.Bl -tag -width -indent
.It Fl w
Overrides the Disabled key and sets it to false. In previous versions, this option
would modify the configuration file. Now the state of the Disabled key is stored
elsewhere on-disk.
.It Fl F
Force the loading of the plist. Ignore the Disabled key.
.It Fl S Ar sessiontype
Some jobs only make sense in certain contexts. This flag instructs
.Nm launchctl
to look for jobs in a different location when using the -D flag, and allows
.Nm launchctl
to restrict which jobs are loaded into which session types. Currently known
session types include: Aqua, LoginWindow, Background, StandardIO and System.
.It Fl D Ar domain
Look for
.Xr plist 5 files ending in *.plist in the domain given. Valid domains include
"system," "local," "network" and "all." When providing a session type, an additional
domain is available for use called "user." For example, without a session type given,
"-D system" would load from property list files from /System/Library/LaunchDaemons.
With a session type passed, it would load from /System/Library/LaunchAgents.
.El
.It Xo Ar unload Op Fl w
.Op Fl S Ar sessiontype
.Op Fl D Ar domain
.Ar paths ...
.Xc
Unload the specified configuration files or directories of configuration files.
This will also stop the job if it is running.
.Bl -tag -width -indent
.It Fl w
Overrides the Disabled key and sets it to true. In previous versions, this option
would modify the configuration file. Now the state of the Disabled key is stored
elsewhere on-disk.
.It Fl S Ar sessiontype
Some jobs only make sense in certain contexts. This flag instructs
.Nm launchctl
to look for jobs in a different location when using the -D flag, and allows
.Nm launchctl
to restrict which jobs are loaded into which session types. Currently known
session types include: Aqua, LoginWindow, Background, StandardIO and System.
.It Fl D Ar domain
Look for
.Xr plist 5 files ending in *.plist in the domain given. Valid domains include
"system," "local," "network" and "all." When providing a session type, an additional
domain is available for use called "user." For example, without a session type given,
"-D system" would load from property list files from /System/Library/LaunchDaemons.
With a session type passed, it would load from /System/Library/LaunchAgents.
.El
.It Xo Ar submit Fl l Ar label
.Op Fl p Ar executable
.Op Fl o Ar path
.Op Fl e Ar path
.Ar -- command
.Op Ar args
.Xc
A simple way of submitting a program to run without a configuration file. This mechanism also tells launchd to keep the program alive in the event of failure.
.Bl -tag -width -indent
.It Fl l Ar label
What unique label to assign this job to launchd.
.It Fl p Ar program
What program to really execute, regardless of what follows the -- in the submit sub-command.
.It Fl o Ar path
Where to send the stdout of the program.
.It Fl e Ar path
Where to send the stderr of the program.
.El
.It Ar remove Ar job_label
Remove the job from launchd by label.
.It Ar start Ar job_label
Start the specified job by label. The expected use of this subcommand is for
debugging and testing so that one can manually kick-start an on-demand server.
.It Ar stop Ar job_label
Stop the specified job by label. If a job is on-demand, launchd may immediately
restart the job if launchd finds any criteria that is satisfied.
Non-demand based jobs will always be restarted. Use of this subcommand is discouraged.
Jobs should ideally idle timeout by themselves.
.It Xo Ar list
.Op Ar -x
.Op Ar label
.Xc
With no arguments, list all of the jobs loaded into
.Nm launchd
in three columns. The first column displays the PID of the job if it is running.
The second column displays the last exit status of the job. If the number in this
column is negative, it represents the negative of the signal which killed the job.
Thus, "-15" would indicate that the job was terminated with SIGTERM. The third column
is the job's label.
.Pp
Note that you may see some jobs in the list whose labels are in the style "0xdeadbeef.anonymous.program".
These are jobs which are not managed by
.Nm launchd ,
but, at one point, made a request to it.
.Nm launchd
claims no ownership and makes no guarantees regarding these jobs. They are stored purely for
bookkeeping purposes.
.Pp
Similarly, you may see labels of the style "0xdeadbeef.mach_init.program". These are legacy jobs that run
under mach_init emulation. This mechanism will be removed in future versions, and all remaining mach_init
jobs should be converted over to
.Nm launchd .
.Pp
If
.Op Ar label
is specified, prints information about the requested job. If
.Op Ar -x
is specified, the information for the specified job is output as an XML property list.
.It Ar setenv Ar key Ar value
Set an environmental variable inside of
.Nm launchd .
.It Ar unsetenv Ar key
Unset an environmental variable inside of
.Nm launchd .
.It Ar getenv Ar key
Get an environmental variable inside of
.Nm launchd .
.It Ar export
Export all of the environmental variables of
.Nm launchd
for use in a shell eval statement.
.It Ar getrusage self | children
Get the resource utilization statistics for
.Nm launchd
or the children of
.Nm launchd .
.It Xo Ar log
.Op Ar level loglevel
.Op Ar only | mask loglevels...
.Xc
Get and set the
.Xr syslog 3
log level mask. The available log levels are: debug, info, notice, warning, error, critical, alert and emergency.
.It Xo Ar limit
.Op Ar cpu | filesize | data | stack | core | rss | memlock | maxproc | maxfiles
.Op Ar both Op Ar soft | hard
.Xc
With no arguments, this command prints all the resource limits of
.Nm launchd
as found via
.Xr getrlimit 2 .
When a given resource is specified, it prints the limits for that resource.
With a third argument, it sets both the hard and soft limits to that value.
With four arguments, the third and forth argument represent the soft and hard limits respectively.
See
.Xr setrlimit 2 .
.It Ar shutdown
Tell
.Nm launchd
to prepare for shutdown by removing all jobs.
.It Ar umask Op Ar newmask
Get or optionally set the
.Xr umask 2
of
.Nm launchd .
.It Xo Ar bslist
.Op Ar PID | ..
.Op Ar -j
.Xc
This prints out Mach bootstrap services and their respective states. While the
namespace appears flat, it is in fact hierarchical, thus allowing for certain
services to be only available to a subset of processes. The three states a
service can be in are active ("A"), inactive ("I") and on-demand ("D").
.Pp
If
.Op Ar PID
is specified, print the Mach bootstrap services available to that PID. If
.Op Ar ..
is specified, print the Mach bootstrap services available in the parent of the
current bootstrap. Note that in Mac OS X v10.6, the per-user Mach bootstrap namespace
is flat, so you will only see a different set of services in a per-user bootstrap
if you are in an explicitly-created bootstrap subset.
.Pp
If
.Op Ar -j
is specified, each service name will be followed by the name of the job which registered
it.
.It Ar bsexec Ar PID command Op Ar args
This executes the given command in the same Mach bootstrap namespace hierachy
as the given PID.
.It Ar bstree Op Ar -j
This prints a hierarchical view of the entire Mach bootstrap tree. If
.Op Ar -j
is specified, each service name will be followed by the name of the job which registered it.
Requires root
privileges.
.It Ar managerpid
This prints the PID of the launchd which manages the current bootstrap.
.It Ar manageruid
This prints the UID of the launchd which manages the current bootstrap.
.It Ar managername
This prints the name of the launchd job manager which manages the current bootstrap.
See LimitLoadToSessionType in
.Xr launchd.plist 5
for more details.
.It Ar help
Print out a quick usage statement.
.El
.Sh ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES
.Bl -tag -width -indent
.It Pa LAUNCHD_SOCKET
This variable informs launchctl how to find the correct launchd to talk to. If it is missing, launchctl will use a built-in default.
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width "/System/Library/LaunchDaemons" -compact
.It Pa ~/Library/LaunchAgents
Per-user agents provided by the user.
.It Pa /Library/LaunchAgents
Per-user agents provided by the administrator.
.It Pa /Library/LaunchDaemons
System wide daemons provided by the administrator.
.It Pa /System/Library/LaunchAgents
Mac OS X Per-user agents.
.It Pa /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
Mac OS X System wide daemons.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr launchd.plist 5 ,
.Xr launchd.conf 5 ,
.Xr launchd 8