Private ƒ

I have a Private Folder with approx 700mb of something.
Have some spooky folders there, like "agentx" and "jabberd",
and they are locked.
Should I leave it alone, delete the whole private ƒ or maybe some of it?

Unless you have created this folder, private folders are often system folders you shouldn't mess with. But to determine this you'll need to supply some more info.

Which version of OSX are you using?
Where is this Private Folder?
What's the folder name?
How did you come across it?

jabberd is part of Jabber/XMPP which is used as an instant messaging protocol. Google Talk is jabber based for instance. Agentx is also likely a folder for some system or user process.

Also if you are using iMessage on your Mac you will now see a new folder in your documents folder called iChat.

This holds a record of all your messages re date and time.

Private is a CRUCIAL part of your Mac and deleting it would be disasterous.

Stop mucking about in the innards of your system where you have no business being!

Nothing to see there. Move along.

chas_m said:

Private is a CRUCIAL part of your Mac and deleting it would be disasterous.

Stop mucking about in the innards of your system where you have no business being!

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While it is true that /private is part of macOS, it's not true that everything inside the /private directory is a part of macOS or isn't something that shouldn't be there.

I don't see why this person has no business reviewing important configurations for various protocols that themselves are allowed to run amuck on macOS in large part thanks to the attitude that such knowledge is privy only to worthy developers. It just prevents newcomers from learning and enables malware to thrive in the shadows.

What's important to note:
--that these folders do hold important configuration files for various programs which do interact with the OS at a level which most would consider having potential to be a vulnerability
--at the same time these configuration files, etc. are NOT protected by the easily bypassed I mean impenetrable fortress know as System Integrity Protection

So basically they're important system files, where "junk" could throw a party, and are within the moderate protections of SIP. Why then wouldn't someone want to know what these files are and for that fact what should and shouldn't be there, which is no easy tasks thanks to this "you're not qualified to even think about it" nonsense that is the quick reply to a thoughtful answer to legitimate questions which many times are beyond the scope of most anyone since they're all incredibly complex programs/protocols and often only a handful of people are experts on the subject especially as time goes on and things from the 1980's linger with ever an ever shrinking minuscule user base, other than hackers.

This all is significant because for Agentx aka Agent Extensibility Protocol which is a standard related to"collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks and for modifying that information to change device behavior" has 7 official CVE-ID vulnerabilities according to the CVE database (the official source for these things). 4 of which are given the highest level of threat potential and 3 of the 7 threats are rated as 10/10. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/search/re...ts_type=overview&query=agentx&search_type=all

But really don't go mucking about there unless you are a member of the developer elite. You have no business as your computer utilizes a magical stealth firewall.

thomato, I think you are doing exactly the right thing. Whenever I find something in the system I dont understand I research it to find out what it is, especially if it takes up a lot of storage. By contacting this forum you are doing just that.
You can also try Googling the titles of some of the files within the folder which may give you more info. I would start with the largest files first.
No doubt some files may be redundant or unnecessary but if you don't understand what they are for they're best left alone.
If however you are confident that they are unnecessary you can move them to the trash (but do not empty the trash) this will deactivate these files without removing them butI suggest you make a full backup of your mac before doing anything using Time Machine. That way if you deliberately or accidentally delete something you need you can easily restore that file to the Private folder in the Time Machine interface.
If everything seems to work fine with the files in the trash, and it may take a while to be sure of that you can risk emptying so long as you have a backup from before you moved them to the trash.

Six year old zombie thread. Much has happened since then.

Darn it, I see a new post to a thread and reply. Not the only one but I must get in the habit of checking the date of the original.

@Charles

Six year old zombie thread. Much has happened since then.

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Not only that but was it sent to remind Charles and myself of the member "who shall not be mentioned", ahhhgggghhh!!!

PS: And who changed his previous "Banned" status to "Guest" and when or why…..???




- Patrick
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PS: And who changed his previous "Banned" status to "Guest" and when or why…..???

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His membership was deleted. When that happens, all posts made by the individual will show up as "Guest". The system software does that automatically.

chscag said:

His membership was deleted. When that happens, all posts made by the individual will show up as "Guest". The system software does that automatically.

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OK, but he was listed as "banned" for quite a while after his "departure". I guess it took the system software quite a while before it kicked in to do its thing.

Anyway, best to just leave dead cats sleep I'd say eh?




- Patrick
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Patrick, back when the database got hammered, a lot of us had status changed to "Guest" in the debacle. I was one of them, but Charlie was able to re-create my status somehow. I suspect that nobody has spent any time on that account to "fix" the status beyond "Guest."

Patrick, back when the database got hammered, a lot of us had status changed to "Guest" in the debacle.

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Thanks Jake. That makes sense.




- Patrick
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