launchd PathState usage

Question

I am trying to use PathState to start and stop a daemon on Mac OSX. It start when I create a file called /var/cache/myjob/run. However when the file is removed, the daemon doesn't stop again.

How do you use PathState to make it stop?

The launch configuration

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>StandardOutPath</key>
        <string>/var/log/tomcat/server.log</string>
        <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
        <string>/var/log/tomcat/server.log</string>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.clcbio.clcserver</string>
        <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
        <string>/Users/tomcat/tomcatdist</string>
        <key>GroupName</key>
        <string>daemon</string>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <dict>
            <key>PathState</key>
            <dict>
                <key>/var/cache/tomcat/run</key>
                <true />
            </dict>
        </dict>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/bin/bash</string>
            <string>-c</string>
            <string>java -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=192m -Djava.awt.headless=true
                -Djava.library.path=./native
                -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager
                -Djava.util.logging.config.file=./conf/logging.properties
                -Djava.endorsed.dirs=./endorsed -Dcatalina.base=./
                -Dcatalina.home=./ -cp bin/bootstrap.jar:./conf
                org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap</string>
        </array>
        <key>UserName</key>
        <string>tomcat</string>
    </dict>
</plist>

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 22 '13 at 18:21

You can't do that with a launchd item. A launchd item specifies the conditions under which a program should be started (and maybe restarted if it exits), but not the conditions under which it should be stopped. You'll need to use some other mechanism to stop the process. (Note that you can stop a running daemon with e.g. sudo launchctl stop com.clcbio.clcserver)

launchd PathState usage

1 Answers1