Interfaces with launchd to load, unload daemons/agents and generally control launchd. launchctl supports taking subcommands on the command line, interactively or even redirected from standard input.
Syntax
launchctl [subcommand [arguments ...]]
Many subcommands in launchctl take a specifier which indicates the target
domain or service for the subcommand.
This specifier may take one of the following forms:
system/[service-name]
Targets the system domain or a service within the system domain.
The system domain manages the root Mach bootstrap and is considered
a privileged execution context. Anyone may read or query
the system domain, but root privileges are required to make
modifications.
user/uid/[service-name]
Targets the user domain for the given UID or a service within
that domain. A user domain may exist independently of a logged-
in user. User domains do not exist on iOS.
login/asid/[service-name]
Targets a user-login domain or service within that domain. A
user-login domain is created when the user logs in at the GUI
and is identified by the audit session identifier associated
with that login. If a user domain has an associated login
domain, the print subcommand will display the ASID of that login
domain. User-login domains do not exist on iOS.
gui/uid/[service-name]
Another form of the login specifier. Rather than specifying a
user-login domain by its ASID, this specifier targets the domain
based on which user it is associated with and is generally more
convenient.
To discover a user’s UID, run the command: id -u username
where username is the full user account name.
Note: GUI domains and user domains share many resources. For the
purposes of the Mach bootstrap name lookups, they are "flat", so
they share the same set of registered names. But they still have
discrete sets of services. So when printing the user domain's
contents, you may see many Mach bootstrap name registrations
from services that exist in the GUI domain for that user, but
you will not see the services themselves in that list.
session/asid/[service-name]
Targets the session domain for the given audit session ID or a
service within that domain. For more information about audit
sessions, see auditon(2) and libbsm(3)
pid/pid/[service-name]
Targets the domain for the given PID or a service within that
domain. Each process on the system will have a PID domain asso-
ciated with it that consists of the XPC services visible to that
process which can be reached with xpc_connection_create(3).
SUBCOMMANDS
bootstrap domain-target [service-path service-path2 ...] | service-target
Bootstrap a domain/service (equivalent to Load in the legacy syntax).
Services may be specified as a series of paths or a service identifier.
Paths may point to XPC service bundles, launchd.plist(5) s, or a
directory(s) containing a collection of either. If there were one
or more errors while bootstrapping or removing a collection of
services, the problematic paths will be printed with the errors
that occurred.
If no paths or service target are specified, this commands will
bootstrap a domain specified as a domain target.
Some domains will implicitly bootstrap pre-defined paths as
part of their creation.
bootout domain-target [service-path service-path2 ...] | service-target
Remove domain/service (equivalent to unload in the legacy syntax).
Services may be specified as a series of paths or a service identifier.
Paths may point to XPC service bundles, launchd.plist(5) s, or a
directory(s) containing a collection of either. If there were one
or more errors while bootstrapping or removing a collection of
services, the problematic paths will be printed with the errors
that occurred.
If no paths or service target are specified, this commands will
remove a domain specified as a domain target.
enable service-target
Enable the service in the requested domain.
This subcommand may only target services within
the system domain or user and user-login domains.
disable service-target
Disable the service in the requested domain. Once a
service is disabled, it cannot be loaded in the specified domain
until it is once again enabled. This state persists across boots
of the device. This subcommand may only target services within
the system domain or user and user-login domains.
uncache service-name
This subcommand instructs launchd to bypass its service cache
for the named service and instead read the service's configura-
tion file directly from disk. launchd maintains an in-memory
cache of XPC service configuration files to minimize the disk
I/O. This subcommand will remove a cached entry so that develop-
ers may more rapidly iterate on a service's configuration. It
should not ever be used as part of production workflow.
kickstart [-kp] service-target
Instructs launchd to kickstart the specified service.
-k If the service is already running, kill the running
instance before restarting the service.
-p Upon success, print the PID of the new process or the
already-running process to stdout.
attach [-ksx] service-target
Attaches the system's debugger to the process currently backing
the specified service. By default, if the service is not run-
ning, this subcommand will block until the service starts.
-k If the service is already running, kill the running
instance.
-s Force the service to start.
-x Attach to xpcproxy(3) before it execs and becomes the
service process. This flag is generally not useful for
anyone but the launchd maintainer.
debug service-target [--program ] [--guard-malloc]
[--malloc-stack-logging] [--debug-libraries]
[--introspection-libraries] [--NSZombie] [--32] [--stdin]
[--stdout] [--stderr] [--environment] [--] [argv0 argv1 argv2
...]
Configures the next invocation of a service for debugging. This
subcommand allows you to temporarily replace the main executable
of the service with one at a different path, enable
libgmalloc(3), set environment variables, set the argument vec-
tor and more. This is a convenient alternative to editing the
launchd.plist(5) for the service and then reloading it, as the
additional debugging properties are cleared once the service has
run once with them.
--program
Instructs launchd(8) to use program-path as the
service's executable.
--guard-malloc
Turns on libgmalloc(3) for the service.
--malloc-stack-logging
Turns on malloc(3) stack logging for the service.
--malloc-nano-allocator
Turns on the malloc(3) nano allocator for the service.
--debug-libraries
Sets the DYLD_IMAGE_SUFFIX for the service to "_debug",
which prefers the debug variants of libraries if they
exist. See dyld(1) for more information.
--introspection-libraries
Adds /usr/lib/system/introspection to the
DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable for the service.
This causes the system to prefer the introspection
variants of libraries if they exist.
--NSZombie
Enables NSZombie.
--32 Runs the service in the appropriate 32-bit architec-
ture. Only available on 64-bit platforms.
--stdin [stdin-path]
Sets the service's standard input to be stdin-path. If
no file is given, uses the current terminal as the ser-
vice's standard input. If stdin-path does not exist, it
is created.
--stdout [stdout-path]
Sets the service's standard input to be stdout-path.
If no file is given, uses the current terminal as the
service's standard input. If stdout-path does not
exist, it is created.
--stderr [stderr-path]
Sets the service's standard input to be stderr-path.
If no file is given, uses the current terminal as the
service's standard input. If stderr-path does not
exist, it is created.
--environment VARIABLE0=value VARIABLE1=value ...
Sets the given environment variables on the service.
-- argv0 argv1 ...
Any arguments following the -- are given to the service
as its argument vector.
IMPORTANT: These arguments replace the service's
default argument vector; they are not merged in any
way. The first argument following -- is given as the
initial (zeroth) element of the service's argument vec-
tor. As with the ProgramArguments launchd.plist(5) key,
you should read carefully and understand the execve(2)
man page.
kill signal-name | signal-number service-target
Sends the specified signal to the specified service if it is
running. The signal number or name (SIGTERM, SIGKILL, etc.) may
be specified.
blame service-target
If the service is running, prints a human-readable string
describing why launchd launched the service. Note that services
may run for many reasons; this subcommand will only show the
most proximate reason. So if a service was run due to a timer
firing, this subcommand will print that reason, irrespective of
whether there were messages waiting on the service's various
endpoints. This subcommand is only intended for debugging and
profiling use and its output should not be relied upon in pro-
duction scenarios.
print domain-target | service-target
Prints information about the specified service or domain. Domain
output includes various properties about the domain as well as a
list of services and endpoints in the domain with state pertain-
ing to each. Service output includes various properties of the
service, including information about its origin on-disk, its
current state, execution context, and last exit status.
IMPORTANT: This output is NOT API in any sense at all. Do NOT
rely on the structure or information emitted for ANY reason. It
may change from release to release without warning.
print-cache
Prints the contents of the launchd service cache.
print-disabled
Prints the list of disabled services.
plist [segment,section] Mach-O
Prints the the property list embedded in the __TEXT,__info_plist
segment/section of the target Mach-O or the specified seg-
ment/section.
procinfo pid
Prints information about the execution context of the specified
PID. This information includes Mach task-special ports and
exception ports (and when run against a DEVELOPMENT launchd,
what names the ports are advertised as in the Mach bootstrap
namespace, if they are known to launchd) and audit session con-
text. This subcommand is intended for diagnostic purposes only,
and its output should not be relied upon in production scenar-
ios. This command requires root privileges.
hostinfo
Prints information about the system's host-special ports,
including the host-exception port. This subcommand requires root
privileges.
resolveport owner-pid port-name
Given a PID and the name of a Mach port right in that process'
port namespace, resolves that port to an endpoint name known to
launchd. This subcommand requires root privileges.
examine [tool arg0 arg1 @PID ...]
Causes launchd to fork(2) itself for examination by a profiling
tool and prints the PID of this new instance to stdout. You are
responsible for killing this snapshot when it is no longer
needed.
Many profiling tools cannot safely examine launchd because they
depend on the functionality it provides. This subcommand creates
an effective snapshot of launchd that can be examined indepen-
dently. Note that on Darwin platforms, fork(2) is implemented
such that only the thread which called fork(2) is replicated
into the new child process, so this subcommand is not useful for
examining any thread other than the main event loop.
This subcommand takes an optional invocation of a tool to be
used on the launchd snapshot. Where you would normally give the
PID of the process to be examined in the tool's invocation,
instead specify the argument "@PID", and launchctl will substi-
tute that argument with the PID of the launchd snapshot in its
subsequent execution of the tool. If used in this form,
launchctl will automatically kill the snapshot instance when the
examination tool exits.
This subcommand may only be used against a DEVELOPMENT launchd.
config system | user parameter value
Sets persistent configuration information for launchd(8)
domains. Only the system domain and user domains may be config-
ured. The location of the persistent storage is an implementa-
tion detail, and changes to that storage should only be made
through this subcommand. A reboot is required for changes made
through this subcommand to take effect.
Supported configuration parameters are:
umask Sets the umask(2) for services within the target domain
to the value specified by value. Note that this value
is parsed by strtoul(3) as an octal-encoded number, so
there is no need to prefix it with a leading '0'.
path Sets the PATH environment variable for all services
within the target domain to the string value. The
string value should conform to the format outlined for
the PATH environment variable in environ(7). Note that
if a service specifies its own PATH, the service-spe-
cific environment variable will take precedence.
NOTE: This facility cannot be used to set general envi-
ronment variables for all services within the domain.
It is intentionally scoped to the PATH environment
variable and nothing else for security reasons.
reboot [system|userspace|halt|logout|apps|reroot ]
Instructs launchd to begin tearing down userspace. With no argu-
ment given or with the system argument given, launchd will make
the reboot(2) system call when userspace has been completely
torn down. With the halt argument given, launchd will make the
reboot(2) system call when userspace has been completely torn
down and pass the RB_HALT flag, halting the system and not ini-
tiating a reboot.
With the userspace argument given, launchd will re-exec itself
when userspace has been torn down and bring userspace back up.
This is useful for rebooting the system quickly under conditions
where kernel data structures or hardware do not need to be re-
initialized.
With the reroot argument given, launchd will perform a userspace
shutdown as with the userspace argument, but it will exec a copy
of launchd from the specified mount-point. This mechanism is a
light-weight way of changing boot partitions. As part of this
process, launchd will make mount-point the new root partition
and bring userspace up as if the kernel had designated
mount-point as the root partition.
IMPORTANT: This type of reboot will, in no way, affect the
already-running kernel on the host. Therefore, when using this
option to switch to another volume, you should only target vol-
umes whose userspace stacks are compatible with the already-run-
ning kernel.
NOTE: As of the date of this writing, this option does not com-
pletely work.
With the logout argument given, launchd will tear down the
caller's GUI login session in a manner similar to a logout ini-
tiated from the Apple menu. The key difference is that a logout
initiated through this subcommand will be much faster since it
will not give apps a chance to display modal dialogs to block
logout indefinitely; therefore there is data corruption risk to
using this option. Only use it when you know you have no unsaved
data in your running apps.
With the apps argument given, launchd will terminate all apps
running in the caller's GUI login session that did not come from
a launchd.plist(5) on-disk. Apps like Finder, Dock and Syste-
mUIServer will be unaffected. Apps are terminated in the same
manner as the logout argument, and all the same caveats apply.
-s When rebooting the machine (either a full reboot or
userspace reboot), brings the subsequent boot session
up in single-user mode.
error [posix|mach|bootstrap] code
Prints a human-readable string of the given error code. By
default, launchctl will attempt to guess which error domain the
code given belongs to. The caller may optionally specify which
domain (either posix, mach, or bootstrap) to interpret the given
code as an error from that subsystem.
variant Prints the launchd variant currently active on the system. Pos-
sible variants include RELEASE, DEVELOPMENT and DEBUG.
version Prints the launchd version string.
LEGACY SUBCOMMANDS
Subcommands from the previous implementation of launchd are generally
available, though some may be unimplemented. Unimplemented subcommands
are documented as such.
load | unload [-wF] [-S sessiontype] [-D searchpath] paths ...
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 root (if they are located
in /Library/LaunchAgents) or the user loading them (if they are
located in $HOME/Library/LaunchAgents). All system-wide daemons
(LaunchDaemons) must be owned by root. Configuration files must
disallow group and world writes. 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.
Note that allowing non-root write access to the
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons directory WILL render your system
unbootable.
-w Overrides the Disabled key and sets it to false or true
for the load and unload subcommands respectively. In
previous versions, this option would modify the config-
uration file. Now the state of the Disabled key is
stored elsewhere on- disk in a location that may not be
directly manipulated by any process other than launchd.
-F Force the loading or unloading 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. Sessions are only relevant for per-user
launchd contexts. Relevant sessions are Aqua (the
default), Background and LoginWindow. Background
agents may be loaded independently of a GUI login. Aqua
agents are loaded only when a user has logged in at the
GUI. LoginWindow agents are loaded when the LoginWindow
UI is displaying and currently run as root.
-D searchpath
Load or unload all plist(5) files in the search path
given. This option may be thought of as expanding into
many individual paths depending on the search path
given. Valid search paths include "system," "local,"
and "all." When providing a session type, an additional
search path is available for use called "user." For
example, without a session type given, "-D system"
would load from or unload all property list files from
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons. With a session type
passed, it would load from
/System/Library/LaunchAgents. Note that launchctl no
longer respects the network search path.
In a previous version of launchd, these search paths
were called "domains", hence -D. The word "domain" is
now used for a totally different concept.
NOTE: Due to bugs in the previous implementation and long-stand-
ing client expectations around those bugs, the load and unload
subcommands will only return a non-zero exit code due to
improper usage. Otherwise, zero is always returned.
submit -l label [-p executable] [-o stdout-path] [-e stderr-path] --
command [arg0] [arg1] [...]
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 stdout-path
Where to send the stdout of the program.
-e stderr-path
Where to send the stderr of the program.
remove label
Remove the job from launchd by label. This subcommand will
return immediately and not block until the job has been stopped.
start 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 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.
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 stopped the job. Thus,
"-15" would indicate that the job was terminated with SIGTERM.
The third column is the job's label. If [label] is specified,
prints information about the requested job.
-x This flag is no longer supported.
setenv key value
Specify an environment variable to be set on all future pro-
cesses launched by launchd in the caller's context.
unsetenv key
Specify that an environment variable no longer be set on any
future processes launched by launchd in the caller's context.
getenv key
Print the value of an environment variable that launchd would
set for all processes launched into the caller's context.
export Export all of the environment 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. This subcommand is not implemented.
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. This subcommand is not implemented.
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. This
subcommand is not implemented.
umask [newmask]
Get or optionally set the umask(2) of launchd. This subcommand
is not implemented.
bslist [PID | ..] [-j]
This subcommand is not implemented and has been superseded by
the print subcommand, which provides much richer information.
bsexec PID command [args]
This executes the given command in as similar an execution con-
text as possible to the target PID. Adopted attributes include
the Mach bootstrap namespace, exception server and security
audit session. It does not modify the process' credentials (UID,
GID, etc.) or adopt any environment variables from the target
process. It affects only the Mach bootstrap context and
directly-related attributes.
asuser UID command [args]
This executes the given command in as similar an execution con-
text as possible to that of the target user's bootstrap. Adopted
attributes include the Mach bootstrap namespace, exception
server and security audit session. It does not modify the
process' credentials (UID, GID, etc.) or adopt any user-specific
environment variables. It affects only the Mach bootstrap con-
text and directly- related attributes.
bstree This subcommand is not implemented and has been superseded by
the print subcommand, which provides much richer information.
managerpid
This prints the PID of the launchd which manages the current
bootstrap. In prior implementations, there could be multiple
launchd processes each managing their own Mach bootstrap sub-
sets. In the current implementation, all bootstraps are managed
by one process, so this subcommand will always print "1".
manageruid
This prints the UID associated with the caller's launchd con-
text.
managername
This prints the name of the launchd job manager which manages
the current launchd context. See LimitLoadToSessionType in
launchd.plist(5) for more details.
help Print out a quick usage statement.
~/Library/LaunchAgents Per-user agents provided by the user.
/Library/LaunchAgents Per-user agents provided by the administrator.
/Library/LaunchDaemons System wide daemons provided by the administrator.
/System/Library/LaunchAgents macOS Per-user agents.
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons macOS System wide daemons.launchd no longer loads configuration files from the network
launchctl will exit with status 0 if the subcommand succeeded.
Otherwise, it will exit with an error code that can be given to the error subcommand to be decoded into human-readable form.
The syntax for launchctl changed in OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) the examples below show both the old and new syntax for starting and stopping launch scripts (services). The new syntax generally does not require sudo.
Examples
Display the launch scripts for all users that are currently loaded/running (legacy syntax):
$ sudo launchctl list
Display the launch scripts that are currently loaded for user ID 504 (new syntax):
$ launchctl print gui/504
Display the launch scripts that are currently loaded/running for root:
$
launchctl print system
Enable remote SSH login (legacy syntax):
$ sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
Enable remote SSH login for login 504 (new syntax):
$ launchctl bootstrap gui/504 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
Disable remote SSH login (legacy syntax):
$ sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
Disable remote SSH login for login 504 (new syntax):
$ launchctl bootout gui/504 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
Disable the macOS Notification Centre (legacy syntax):
$
launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist
$ killall NotificationCenter
Disable the macOS Notification Centre for login 504 (new syntax):
$
launchctl bootout gui/504 /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist
$ killall NotificationCenter
An alternative is to turn on the Notification “Do Not Disturb” from the Menu Bar of macOS which lasts for 1 day.
Re-enable the macOS Notification Centre (legacy syntax):
$ launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist
Then double-click "/System/Library/CoreServices/Notification Center” to launch it again.
Re-enable the macOS Notification Centre for login 504 (new syntax):
$ launchctl bootstrap gui/504 /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist
Then double-click "/System/Library/CoreServices/Notification Center” to launch it again.
“A good rule for rocket experimenters to follow is this: always assume that it will explode” ~ 'Astronautics,' issue 38, October 1937
Related macOS commands:
The OS X equivalent of Windows services is Launchd.
The OS X equivalent of services.msc on Windows is launchctl.
Launchd.info - Description of launchd, agents and daemons.
The daemons managed by launchd can be on demand or can be triggered periodically (this is configurable in launchd.plist)
launchd.plist(5), launchd.conf(5), launchd(8)