With launchctl 2, how can I infer the domain from a service that is already running on macOS >= 10.10?

Question

launchctl 2 takes a specifier which indicates the target domain. According to the manual of the command, this specifier may take one of the following forms:

system/[service-name]
user/<uid>/[service-name]
login/<asid>/[service-name]
gui/<uid>/[service-name]
pid/<pid>/[service-name]

The launchctl list command is now deprecated and replaced (I guess) by the launchctl print command. The later requires a domain-target or service-target as input.

Are there ONLY those five domains, or there can be more ?
If yes, how can I list all the domains in my system ?
How do I infer the domain from a service that is already running ?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 25 '23 at 14:23

In my understanding launchd has a single domain, the system domain which itself has two subdomain types user and pid.

com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.system.
com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.<uid>
com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.<pid>:

To see all subdomains of the system domain:¹

$ launchctl print system | awk '/^\t*subdomains/,/^\t*}/'
subdomains = {
  com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.systemstats.1142
  com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.softwareupdated.738
  com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.501
  ...
}

My further interpretation is that if a user account is a regular user account and the user is currently logged into the graphical user interface then the user domain will have a user login subdomain for that user account.

$ launchctl print user/$(id -u) | awk '/^\tsubdomains/,/^\t}/'
subdomains = {
  com.apple.xpc.launchd.user.domain.501.104157.Aqua
}

My further interpretation is that if that subdomain exists then login/<asid> and gui/<uid> can be used to access the services within that subdomain.

Either using the UID:

$ launchctl print user/$(id -u) | awk '/^\tservices/,/^\t}/'
services = {
61949   (pe)    com.apple.tonelibraryd
    0      -    com.apple.accounts.dom
  421      -    com.apple.distnoted.xpc.agent
...
}

Or alternatively the ASID (audit session identifier):

$ ASID=$(id -A | awk -F"=" '/asid/ {print $2}')
$ launchctl print login/$ASID | awk '/^\tservices/,/^\t}/'

There doesn't seems to be an official way to retrieve the domains that a service is currently registered in, but using launchctl dumpstate could be an approach.²

$ launchctl dumpstate | awk '/^com.apple.AVKit.OutputDeviceMenuService/,/^}/' | grep domain
domain = com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.photoanalysisd.79837
domain = com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.Spotlight.79609
domain = com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.Finder.79572

Wrapping that into a Bash function and adding it to ~/.bashrc:

function launchctl_domains () {
  SERVICE="$1"
  launchctl dumpstate | awk "/^$SERVICE/,/^}/" | awk -F"=" '/domain/ {print $2}' | awk '{$1=$1;print}'
}
export -f launchctl_domains

A service in multiple PID domains:

$ launchctl_domains com.apple.AVKit.OutputDeviceMenuService
com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.photoanalysisd.79837
com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.Spotlight.79609
com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.Finder.79572

A service in multiple user domains:

$ launchctl_domains com.apple.tonelibraryd
com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.501
com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.user.0

A service in a login user/GUI domain:

$ launchctl_domains com.apple.accountsd
com.apple.xpc.launchd.user.domain.501.104157.Aqua

_{1. Be aware that parsing the output of launchctl print is strongly discouraged in the man page of launchctl}

_{2. Documented in launchctl help, it appears that the output is truncated after 20 MB}

_{Everything tested on macOS Catalina 10.15.7}

_{I'm aware that the question was asked some time ago, but hopefully it can shed some light on the topic for others.}

With launchctl 2, how can I infer the domain from a service that is already running on macOS >= 10.10?

1 Answers1