launchd is a pythonic interface to interact with macOS's launchd. It provides access to basic querying and interaction with launchd. It is implemented using the Objective C ServiceManagement framework as well as the launchd command line utility. Therefore, this python package can only be used on macOS
The python objective C bridge contains some special types. This package strips off all non built-in type information and returns pure python data.
Examples
The relevant import statement is:
import launchdListing all launchd jobs:
for job in launchd.jobs():
print(job.label, job.pid, job.laststatus, job.properties, job.plistfilename)Find the pid and laststatus of a job:
>>> launchd.LaunchdJob("com.apple.Finder").pid
278
>>> launchd.LaunchdJob("com.apple.Finder").laststatus
0
>>> launchd.LaunchdJob("com.example.fubar").pid
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "launchd/launchctl.py", line 78, in refresh
raise ValueError("job '%s' does not exist" % self.label)
ValueError: job 'com.example.fubar' does not existDetect if a job exists:
>>> launchd.LaunchdJob("com.example.fubar").exists()
Falselaunchd job properties (these come directly from launchd and NOT the .plist files):
>>> launchd.LaunchdJob("com.apple.Finder").properties
{'OnDemand': 1, 'PID': 278, 'PerJobMachServices': {'com.apple.coredrag': 0,
'com.apple.axserver': 0, 'com.apple.CFPasteboardClient': 0,
'com.apple.tsm.portname': 0}, 'LimitLoadToSessionType': 'Aqua',
'Program': '/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder',
'TimeOut': 30, 'LastExitStatus': 0, 'Label': 'com.apple.Finder',
'MachServices': {'com.apple.finder.ServiceProvider': 10}}
>>> launchd.LaunchdJob("com.apple.Finder").properties["OnDemand"]
1Find all plist filenames of currently running jobs:
for job in launchd.jobs():
if job.pid is None or job.plistfilename is None:
continue
print(job.plistfilename)Job properties of a given job (this uses the actual .plist file):
>>> launchd.plist.read("com.apple.kextd")
{'ProgramArguments': ['/usr/libexec/kextd'], 'KeepAlive': {'SuccessfulExit': False},
'POSIXSpawnType': 'Interactive', 'MachServices': {'com.apple.KernelExtensionServer':
{'HostSpecialPort': 15}}, 'Label': 'com.apple.kextd'}Installation
$ pip install launchdor, if you want to work using the source tarball:
$ python setup.py installRequirements
- OS X >= 10.6
- Python 3.4+