Mac Geekery

Thanks for the launchd teaser. And for creating this cool site, btw, which has rekindled my interest in Drupal.

Inetd and xinetd allows you to control access to services based on the source IP address, can the same be done through launchd?

For those interested there’s a Q&A session on IRC tomorrow evening with Dave Zarzycki – the author of launchd – details as posted by Dave:

Date: 5/25/2005
Time: 4pm PDT till when I go to bed
Channel: #launchd
Network: irc.freenode.net

Why am I doing this?

I’ve been tasked to write a HOWTO/FAQ for launchd.

Now, as the guy who wrote launchd, I’m the best and worst person to write such a document.

That’s why I need your help. Feel free to come and hang out and I’ll try and answer as many questions as I can.

See ya then,

davez

… but I’m not really that much of a geek that I know how to use the Property Editor…!

How do I actually add the instructions (with or without the preceeding bullets?);

Label string
ProgramArguments array
OnDemand boolean

etc…?

Are they typed in or are some bits selected from options?

All help gratefully received.

Eeyore
My House

Nice intro, but does anyone have snmpd running via launchd?

So far, I haven’t been successful..

Please excuse any weird formatting and missing greater than/less than and forward-slash symbols from this mail, but I have not yet figured out a way to make them appear… Please assume that all the bits like key and array and string are there and correct

I have this as /Library/LaunchDaemons/Fetchmail.plist

Label
FetchmailfromDemon
Program
/usr/bin/fetchmail
ProgramArguments

/usr/bin/fetchmail
–fetchmailrc
/etc/mail/fetchmailrc
–logfile
/var/log/fetchmail.log
–silent

RunAtLoad

but, at launch, it does this (from /var/log/system.log):

Jun 21 03:42:08 pmac-g5 launchd: FetchmailFromDemon: exited with exit code: 5
Jun 21 03:42:08 pmac-g5 launchd: FetchmailFromDemon: 9 more failures without living at least 60 seconds will cause job removal

here is the fetchmailrc:

set daemon 120
poll pop3.demon.co.uk proto pop3
aka demon.net
aka mailstore
no dns
localdomains xxxxxxx.xxxxxx.co.uk xxxxxxxxxx.demon.co.uk localhost: user “xxxxxxxxxx” pass “xxxxxxxx” to * here
fetchall
preconnect ’echo date – Connecting’
postconnect ’echo date – Disconnected’

Any ideas why this won’t work? I understand that this might not work for on-demand running by launchd as it turns itself into a daemon when it is run, but I just want to run it once at load time, and then just leave it as a daemon.

fetchmail runs fine from the command line and used to run fine from a StartupItem.

What the heck is an error code 5 - can’t find any definitions for launchd error codes any where on the ’net.

white:~/Library/LaunchAgents paul$ 2006-02-20 22:01:03.608 TextEdit[26746] CFLog (0): CFMessagePort: bootstrap_register(): failed 1103 (0x44f), port = 0x3003, name = 'com.apple.TextEdit.ServiceProvider'
See /usr/include/servers/bootstrap_defs.h for the error codes.
2006-02-20 22:01:03.772 TextEdit[26746] CFLog (99): CFMessagePortCreateLocal(): failed to name Mach port (com.apple.TextEdit.ServiceProvider)

<?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>com.apple.TextEdit</string>
	<key>OnDemand</key>
	<false/>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit</string>
	</array>
</dict>
</plist>

OK, this is too cool. I have been using a shell script to run an ssh tunnel from my wireless boxes to the wired gateway at my house, but I have to remember to re-run it when systems wake from sleep.

Now, I may not have to do that anymore and — wonder of wonders — I may be able to dispense with the shell script. Though it looks like I may have to have some kind of PID file to prevent it from being run more that one.

Here’s what I have: substitute your own gateway system for XXXX (I connect to 3128 because it’s a squid proxy cache).

<?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>org.paulbeard.tunnel</string>
	<key>OnDemand</key>
	<true/>
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>/usr/bin/ssh -N -p 22 -C -c 3des XXXX -L 8080/XXXX/3128
</string>
	</array>
</dict>
</plist>

Perhaps there are more refined controls that can detect and prevent duplication.

But the bottomline is, this is what I have been looking for.