Originally Posted By: deniro
Anyone know what that means? I know what Launch Daemons are. I wonder whether I should delete this plist.


OSX uses Launch Control to run both Launch Daemons and Launch Agents. Basically a Daemon is something that provides a service for the system, and an agent is something that provides a service for a user. Daemons start when the computer boots up, and agents launch when users log in. Agents run with the permissions of the user, and daemons can run with higher privileges, up to and including root.

Agents and Daemons can be triggered to become active from a wide variety of things. Inserting a flash drive may trigger an antivirus scanner to run, for example. (that would be a daemon) If a user installs camera software, that will install an agent that might launch a picture browser when they plug in an SD card.

The plist in question is just a standard form that is filled out and dropped into a daemon or agent folder, that informs launch control that the service is available and tells it how it should behave and be used. If you delete the plist, launchctl won't know about the service the next time the computer restarts or a user logs in, and so the service won't be available. The actual service software will remain on your computer though.


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