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macos-playground

📚 Learning and exploring macOS.

NOTE: This project is designed for my own personal use.

Overview

This repository is for me to explore macOS-specific things like .plist files, launchd, and whatever else I need to "learn by doing" in regard to macOS. By contrast, I explore other software things in playground repos like:

Instructions

Follow these instructions to build and run the demo programs.

  1. Pre-requisite: Swift
    • I'm using Swift 5.8
  2. Build the PrintEnv program binary * 
    swift build --product PrintEnv
  3. Run the program binary from the shell * 
    .build/arm64-apple-macosx/debug/PrintEnv
    • The output will look something like the following, but your PATH will be different because it's natural to customize the PATH as you install and developer software on your computer. (I pared down my PATH for effect)
    • $ .build/arm64-apple-macosx/debug/PrintEnv
Welcome to 'macos-playground'! This message is brought to you by a program written in the Swift programming language.
The 'PATH' environment variable is set to:
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/:/usr/local/opt/curl/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/Apple/usr/bin
    • Next, we're going to start the steps to bundle this program into a macOS application. By application, I mean something that is in the /Applications/ directory and has a name ending in .app, like Calculator.app.
  4. Create the PrintEnv.app directory and make it executable * 
    mkdir /Applications/PrintEnv.app
chmod +x /Applications/PrintEnv.app
  5. Create the PrintEnv.app directory structure * 
    mkdir -p /Applications/PrintEnv.app/Contents/MacOS
  6. Copy over the Info.plist file * 
    cp Info.plist /Applications/PrintEnv.app/Contents/
  7. Copy over the PrintEnv binary * 
    cp .build/arm64-apple-macosx/debug/PrintEnv /Applications/PrintEnv.app/Contents/MacOS/
  8. Launch the program from Spotlight
    • Open Spotlight (Cmd + Space), type in PrintEnv, and it will appear in the "Applications" section. Click it to launch it.
    • Nothing will appear to happen! That's okay. The program only writes some logs to a file and then exits.
  9. View the logs * 
    tail ~/Library/Application\ Support/PrintEnv/log.txt
    • The output should look something like the following.
    • 20:59:39: Welcome to 'macos-playground'! This message is brought to you by a program written in the Swift programming language.
20:59:39: The 'PATH' environment variable is set to:
20:59:39: /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
    • The PATH is much shorter than when I ran the program from the shell because of the loginwindow process. See this StackExchange answer for more details.
    • Next, let's explore macOS extended attributes.
  10. Run the InspectExtendedAttributes program * 
    swift run InspectExtendedAttributes /Applications/Visual\ Studio\ Code.app/
    • It should look something like the following.
    • Extended attributes for /Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/:
  com.apple.macl: 72 bytes
    • Next, let's explore Launch Agents.
  11. Create a Launch Agent * 
    cp dgroomes.macosplayground.echohello.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
    • Warning: the properties list file *.plist hardcodes to my home directory because I could not find a way to express a dynamic reference like ~ or $HOME like we do in the shell.
    • Load the Launch Agent
    • launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/dgroomes.macosplayground.echohello.plist
    • Check the output of the program in the log file. Use the following command.
    • cat ~/Library/Application\ Support/EchoHello.log
    • It should look like this.
    • Hello from macos-playground!
    • When you're satisfied that the Launch Agent is working, you can unload it.
    • launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/dgroomes.macosplayground.echohello.plist
    • Next, let's create a Launch Agent that does something else.
  12. Create a "scheduled job" Launch Agent * 
    cp dgroomes.macosplayground.touchfile.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
    • Load the Launch Agent
    • launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/dgroomes.macosplayground.touchfile.plist
    • The touchfile program should run every 10 seconds. You can verify this by running a command to continuously watch the list of files in the /tmp directory.
    • while true; do ls -l /tmp/hello*; sleep 3; done
    • When you're satisfied that the Launch Agent is working, you can unload it.
    • launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/dgroomes.macosplayground.touchfile.plist
    • Next, let's explore how to run subprocesses.
  13. Run the ProcessManagement program * 
    swift run ProcessManagement
    • It should look something like the following.
    • Let's explore how to run subprocesses from a Swift program.
The 'echo' command says hello!  (... and it was invoked from a Swift program)

Let's kick off multiple 'sleep' subprocesses all at once...
'sleep' subprocess 1: Subprocess(pid: 9396, state: running)
'sleep' subprocess 2: Subprocess(pid: 9397, state: running)
'sleep' subprocess 3: Subprocess(pid: 9398, state: running)
'sleep' subprocess 4: Subprocess(pid: 9399, state: running)
'sleep' subprocess 5: Subprocess(pid: 9400, state: running)
The first three subprocesses have completed.

It took 3.009290833 seconds to start and wait for the completion (or pre-emptively cancel) all five of the 'sleep' subprocesses.
The final state of the subprocesses is:
'sleep' subprocess 1: Subprocess(pid: 9396, state: completed)
'sleep' subprocess 2: Subprocess(pid: 9397, state: completed)
'sleep' subprocess 3: Subprocess(pid: 9398, state: completed)
'sleep' subprocess 4: Subprocess(pid: 9399, state: cancelled)
'sleep' subprocess 5: Subprocess(pid: 9400, state: cancelled)
  14. Run the Secrets program and save a secret message * 
    swift run Secrets
    • Enter in a secret message, like "The secret message is 123xyz". This will be saved on the macOS login keychain. Using the keychain is good for a few reasons: the secret is encrypted, its viewable from the 'Keychain Access' app, and it can be accessed by trusted programs automatically so that you don't have to type it over and over again.
  15. Run the Secrets program again to read the secret message * 
    swift run Secrets
    • The macOS system will prompt you twice to enter your login password. Finally, the program is granted access to read the item from the keychain and it prints it to the terminal

Wish List

General clean-ups, todos and things I wish to implement for this project:

  • DONE I want to create a macOS application. Specifically, something that is in the /Applications/ directory. I want to see how an application (process) is launched, how it gets its PATH set, etc. Let's create an executable Swift binary that we package up (not sure the right words to use here) into /Applications/ and see what happens when we launch it.
    • DONE Write a sample Swift program
    • DONE (manually) Package the program into /Applications/ (.plist etc). Is there an easy way to do this? I'm also interested in just hand writing the config file and moving the executable there by hand too.
    • DONE Write the instructions for packaging into /Applications/
  • DONE Investigate "extended attributes" (xattrs) on macOS. What are they? How do I view them? Who sets them? I only know about xattrs because of the quarantine feature but are there other useful ones?
    • SKIP I implemented it for a file but I want to do it for a directory, recursively on its files.
  • DONE launchd (basics) Can I do a "hello world" example of launchd? I was able to make a Launch Agent that runs a touch command on a schedule, but I struggled making any other example. I need to figure this out.
    • DONE Let's get a schedule Launch Agent job going.
    • DONE Let's get a non-scheduled Launch Agent. Let's echo hello.
  • ABANDON (I think this was in vain because I misinterpeted launch agents. They can't control bundles. 'launchctl setenv' is the ticket.) launchd (advanced). I want some familiarity with launchd. Can I customize the environment variables for a macOS app via a .plist file (which is ultimately read by launchd?)?
    • DONE We're going to co-opt the PrintPath program to do more stuff so let's rename it to PrintEnv and have it print the PATH and other environment variables.
    • Create a launch agent (??) .plist file that corresponds to the PrintEnv app (by way of the bundle identifier?) and in this file, set an environment variable and see if it's available to the program. I want to connect the dots between the .plist file and the program.
    • I'm struggling with this. I can't get the env var defined in the launch agent .plist file to be seen by the program. I must have not connected the dots correctly. Next, let me try launching the program on a schedule from the launch agent, so I know for sure that the launch agent is having an effect. I should be able to see the logs continually be updated to prove that the program is running on a schedule.
  • In PrintEnv, redirect standard out to a log file using the <key>StandardOutPath</key> config in the launch agent .plist file. This is way better than doing the silly "log to standard output and a custom file" thing that I implemented. I had success logging to Application Support/ because it doesn't need permissions.
  • DONE (CompletableFuture) Try abstracting the circuitous future/promise trick I need for async-ifying Process.
  • DONE Defect: the PrintEnv program needs access to create and write to the directory /usr/local/var/log/. It's out of scope to deal with permissions/entitlements for this program. Instead, we can write to an app-specific directory in Application Support.
  • Idiomatic Xcode-driven application. I have been handwriting swift build commands, cp/chmod commands, and Info.plist files in part to grok the physical makeup of application bundles, but also in part because I didn't want to bother learning the Xcode abstractions over these things. But now the time has come. I need the Xcode abstractions because I'm getting into another hard subject which is Capabilities and for that I need Signing. (I mean, there has to be a headless/handwritten way to do signing right??). In any case, "idiomatic Xcode app" is a good thing to learn.
  • Manual code signing. I should be able to use headless codesigning tools like codesign right?
  • DONE Credentials/secrets. Do a "hello world" of Keychain access. (Do I need signing for this?)

Reference