11-11-2009, 08:55 AM

hello,

i have to create a daemon on a Mac OSX. the daemon must start when the Mac boots up. i have therefore wrote a daemon (using RealBasic), and also wrote a plist file which points to the daemon. everything has been running just fine on Mac OSX 10.4 for months. Now i have copied everything to Snow Leopard 10.6 and am having a small problem. let me explain what i have done so far.

1) i have created a plist file, called "myTestDaemon.plist", which lives in system/library/launchdaemons. the file is exactly this:

<?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>myNewTestDaemon</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/Users/Paul/Desktop/RealBasic_Projects/My_Application</string>
	</array>
	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
	<true/>	
</dict>
</plist>

2) as the above file describes, i have put the daemon, called "myNewTestDaemon", inside /Users/Paul/Desktop/RealBasic_Projects/My_Application

3) i can then start the daemon using one of two methods - either by rebooting the Mac, in which case the launchd system tool automatically starts the daemon, or by starting the daemon manually using launchctl:

sudo launchctl load /system/library/launchdaemons/myTestDaemon.plist

once i do either of the two above methods, i can verify that the daemon is started by doing:

sudo launchctl list

and this shows that myTestDaemon.plist is indeed running.

now, i have done exactly the same thing on my shiney new Mac mini with Snow Leopard on it, but when i do the "launchctl load ...." command, it gives me an error:

"nothing found to load"

after a bit of snooping on the net i found that some people were saying that i have to add a "-F" flag to the command, so now it reads:

sudo launchctl load -F /system/library/launchdaemons/myTestDaemon.plist

apparantly, all plists have a default key called "Disabled", which, if you do not explicitly set to false, is set to true by default. setting the -F flag tells launchctl to ignore this Disabled key, which effectively makes Disable=false. so, i tried the above command with the -F flag and sure enough, this time my daemon started.

so i then explicitly added the key to my plist:

<key>Disabled</key>
<false/>

surely this should have the same affect ? apparantly not, because i still get the orginal "nothing found to load" error when i do the "launchctl load...." (without the -F flag). in addition, the daemon still does not start when the Mac boots up. and this is my problem.

like i say, this was all working in 10.4, and now not working in 10.6. So i imagine something has changed between version ? does my plist file look right ? all i need the daemon to do is start up at boot time.

hope i have explained it well. if not please ask for more info.

any help appreciated.

11-11-2009, 09:33 AM

Have a look at this:

launchctl disabled key in 10.6? - macenterprise | Google Groups

You may want to take a look at the /private/var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist file. Sounds like you service may have ended up there somehow. Thats the only thing I can think of. Everything else looks ok.

Also, you may want to look at the logs in the /Applications/Utilities/Console application. Typically launchctrl gives extended information in the console logs.

Oh, and welcome to the forums!

12-08-2009, 02:16 PM

Hi-
I am having this same problem. Did you ever figure out how to make it work?
Thanks!

12-14-2009, 08:29 AM

Originally Posted by johnc82

Hi-
I am having this same problem. Did you ever figure out how to make it work?
Thanks!

right - this was ages ago, and i did get to the bottom of it but i cant remember what i did exactly

heres the plist that im currently using, maybe it was extra keep-alive and disabled flags that made it work?

<?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>MyClientService</string>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/Users/me/Desktop/RealBasic_Projects/Test/MyClientService</string>
	</array>
	<key>KeepAlive</key>
	<true/>	
	<key>Disabled</key>
	<false/>
	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
	<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

sorry i cant be of any more help, the project has been put on hold since i posted last so its been ages since i actually played around with this - good luck