MacOS – Reconfiguring a launchd job

launchdmacosmacports

I want to configure a launchd daemon to run a virus scan daily. I have written a .plist and manually loaded it using launchctl load but it doesn't seem to run. I wanted to modify it to try and debug why. However, it doesn't seem to be modifiable.

Here's the output of sudo launchctl list org.macports.clamscan:

{
        "LimitLoadToSessionType" = "System";
        "Label" = "org.macports.clamscan";
        "TimeOut" = 30;
        "OnDemand" = true;
        "LastExitStatus" = 19968;
        "Program" = "clamscan";
        "ProgramArguments" = (
                "clamscan";
                "--suppress-ok-results";
                "-l";
                "/var/log/clamscan.log";
                "-r";
                "/Users";
        );
};

I tried to unload it to edit it and reload it but it didn't seem to work:

$ sudo launchctl unload org.macports.clamscan
Password:
$ sudo launchctl list org.macports.clamscan
{
        "LimitLoadToSessionType" = "System";
        "Label" = "org.macports.clamscan";
        "TimeOut" = 30;
        "OnDemand" = true;
        "LastExitStatus" = 19968;
        "Program" = "clamscan";
        "ProgramArguments" = (
                "clamscan";
                "--suppress-ok-results";
                "-l";
                "/var/log/clamscan.log";
                "-r";
                "/Users";
        );
};

I tried to modify it to replace clamscan with a script so I can verify which arguments it was being called with. However, when I try and load it, it complains that it's already loaded.

$ sudo launchctl load ~/Code/org.macports.clamscan.plist 
/Users/Stephen/Code/org.macports.clamscan.plist: service already loaded

Aside from rebooting is there a way to edit an installed launchd job?
This is for Sierra.

Best Answer

You can tell launchd to remove it from its cache and reread from disk. From the man page:

 uncache service-name
          This subcommand instructs launchd to bypass its service cache
          for the named service and instead read the service's configu-
          ration file directly from disk.  launchd maintains an in-mem-
          ory cache of XPC service configuration files to minimize the
          disk I/O. This subcommand will remove a cached entry so that
          developers may more rapidly iterate on a service's configura-
          tion. It should not ever be used as part of production work-
          flow.
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