launchk

A Cursive TUI that makes XPC queries & helps manage launchd jobs.

Should work on macOS 10.10+ according to the availability sec. in the docs.

Install

Binaries are available via brew tap:

brew tap mach-kernel/pkgs
brew install mach-kernel/pkgs/launchk

Features

Use : to enter command mode, / to enter filtering mode, and any of sguadl for filtering by [system, global, user, agent, daemon, loaded]. Ctrl-U to clear, Tab to complete, Enter to submit.

• Poll XPC for jobs and display changes as they happen
• Filter by LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons in scopes (fsnotify watched):
  • System (/System/Library/)
  • Global (/Library)
  • User (~/)
• load
• unload
• dumpstate (opens in $PAGER)
• dumpjpcategory (opens in $PAGER)
• procinfo (opens in $PAGER, does not require root!)
• edit plist in $EDITOR with support for binary plists
• csrinfo show all CSR flags and their values

xpc-sys

While building launchk, XPC convenience glue was placed in xpc-sys.

[See its README here]

Credits

A big thanks to these open source projects and general resources:

• block Obj-C block support, necessary for any XPC function taking xpc_*_applier_t
• Cursive
• tokio
• plist
• notify
• bitflags
• libc
• lazy_static
• xcrun
• Apple Developer XPC services
• Apple Developer XPC API reference
• MOXIL / launjctl
• geosnow - A Long Evening With macOS' sandbox
• Bits of launchd - @5aelo
• Audit tokens explained (e.g. ASID)
• objc.io XPC guide
• Fortinet XPC RE article
• This HN comment re history
• The various source links found in comments, from Chrome's sandbox and other headers with definitions for private API functions.
• After all, it is Apple's launchd :>)

Everything else (C) David Stancu & Contributors 2021