launchctl(1) BSD General Commands Manual launchctl(1)NAMElaunchctl — Interfaces with launchd
SYNOPSISlaunchctl [subcommand [arguments ...]]
DESCRIPTIONlaunchctl interfaces with launchd to load, unload daemons/agents and gen‐
erally control launchd. launchctl supports taking subcommands on the
command line, interactively or even redirected from standard input.
These commands can be stored in $HOME/.launchd.conf or /etc/launchd.conf
to be read at the time launchd starts.
SUBCOMMANDS
load [-wF] [-S sessiontype] [-D domain] paths ...
Load the specified configuration files or directories of config‐
uration 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. Con‐
figuration 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 spec‐
ify which executable will be launched.
Note that allowing non-root write access to the /Sys‐
tem/Library/LaunchDaemons directory WILL render your system
unbootable.
-w Overrides the Disabled key and sets it to false. In
previous versions, this option would modify the config‐
uration file. Now the state of the Disabled key is
stored elsewhere on-disk.
-F Force the loading of the plist. Ignore the Disabled
key.
-S sessiontype
Some jobs only make sense in certain contexts. This
flag instructs launchctl to look for jobs in a differ‐
ent location when using the -D flag, and allows
launchctl to restrict which jobs are loaded into which
session types. Currently known session types include:
Aqua, LoginWindow, Background, StandardIO and System.
-D domain
Look for plist(5) files ending in *.plist in the domain
given. Valid domains include "system," "local," "net‐
work" 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 /Sys‐
tem/Library/LaunchDaemons. With a session type passed,
it would load from /System/Library/LaunchAgents.
unload [-w] [-S sessiontype] [-D domain] paths ...
Unload the specified configuration files or directories of con‐
figuration files. This will also stop the job if it is running.
-w Overrides the Disabled key and sets it to true. In pre‐
vious versions, this option would modify the configura‐
tion file. Now the state of the Disabled key is stored
elsewhere on-disk.
-S sessiontype
Some jobs only make sense in certain contexts. This
flag instructs launchctl to look for jobs in a differ‐
ent location when using the -D flag, and allows
launchctl to restrict which jobs are loaded into which
session types. Currently known session types include:
Aqua, LoginWindow, Background, StandardIO and System.
-D domain
Look for plist(5) files ending in *.plist in the domain
given. Valid domains include "system," "local," "net‐
work" 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 /Sys‐
tem/Library/LaunchDaemons. With a session type passed,
it would load from /System/Library/LaunchAgents.
submit -l label [-p executable] [-o path] [-e path] -- command [args]
A simple way of submitting a program to run without a configura‐
tion file. This mechanism also tells launchd to keep the program
alive in the event of failure.
-l label
What unique label to assign this job to launchd.
-p program
What program to really execute, regardless of what fol‐
lows the -- in the submit sub-command.
-o path Where to send the stdout of the program.
-e path Where to send the stderr of the program.
remove job_label
Remove the job from launchd by label.
start job_label
Start the specified job by label. The expected use of this sub‐
command is for debugging and testing so that one can manually
kick-start an on-demand server.
stop 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.
list [-x] [label]
With no arguments, list all of the jobs loaded into 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 repre‐
sents 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.
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 launchd, but, at one point, made a request to
it. launchd claims no ownership and makes no guarantees regard‐
ing these jobs. They are stored purely for bookkeeping purposes.
Similarly, you may see labels of the style "0xdead‐
beef.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 launchd.
If [label] is specified, prints information about the requested
job. If [-x] is specified, the information for the specified job
is output as an XML property list.
setenv key value
Set an environmental variable inside of launchd.
unsetenv key
Unset an environmental variable inside of launchd.
getenv key
Get an environmental variable inside of launchd.
export Export all of the environmental variables of launchd for use in
a shell eval statement.
getrusage self | children
Get the resource utilization statistics for launchd or the chil‐
dren of launchd.
log [level loglevel] [only | mask loglevels...]
Get and set the syslog(3) log level mask. The available log lev‐
els are: debug, info, notice, warning, error, critical, alert
and emergency.
limit [cpu | filesize | data | stack | core | rss | memlock | maxproc |
maxfiles] [both [soft | hard]]
With no arguments, this command prints all the resource limits
of launchd as found via 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 setrlimit(2).
shutdown
Tell launchd to prepare for shutdown by removing all jobs.
umask [newmask]
Get or optionally set the umask(2) of launchd.
bslist [PID | ..] [-j]
This prints out Mach bootstrap services and their respective
states. While the namespace appears flat, it is in fact hierar‐
chical, 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").
If [PID] is specified, print the Mach bootstrap services avail‐
able to that PID. If [..] 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.
If [-j] is specified, each service name will be followed by the
name of the job which registered it.
bsexec PID command [args]
This executes the given command in the same Mach bootstrap
namespace hierachy as the given PID.
bstree [-j]
This prints a hierarchical view of the entire Mach bootstrap
tree. If [-j] is specified, each service name will be followed
by the name of the job which registered it. Requires root priv‐
ileges.
managerpid
This prints the PID of the launchd which manages the current
bootstrap.
manageruid
This prints the UID of the launchd which manages the current
bootstrap.
managername
This prints the name of the launchd job manager which manages
the current bootstrap. See LimitLoadToSessionType in
launchd.plist(5) for more details.
help Print out a quick usage statement.
ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES
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.
FILES
~/Library/LaunchAgents Per-user agents provided by the user.
/Library/LaunchAgents Per-user agents provided by the adminis‐
trator.
/Library/LaunchDaemons System wide daemons provided by the admin‐
istrator.
/System/Library/LaunchAgents Mac OS X Per-user agents.
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons Mac OS X System wide daemons.
SEE ALSOlaunchd.plist(5), launchd.conf(5), launchd(8)Darwin 1 May, 2009 Darwin
