macOS Daemonology: Communicate with Daemons, Agents, and Helpers Through XPC

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021

V. VashurkinmacOS Daemonologyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-7277-0_5

5. Classic Daemon

Volodymyr Vashurkin¹  

(1)

Dnipro, Ukraine

 

This chapter covers the specifics of “classic” daemons such as root background processes.

As mentioned in previous chapters, we decided to use the term daemon to classify the exact kind of launchd service: system-wide daemons that are not privilege helpers or system extensions.

Daemon Specifics

Daemons are:

• System-wide

• Run as root

• Usually the single instance in the system

• Stand-alone and independent

• Any executable (command-line, bundle, or script)

Naming Conventions

Daemons in macOS have their own naming convention:

• Lowercase

• Letter d at ...