What's the correct way to stop a background process on Mac OS X?

Posted by mcsheffrey on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by mcsheffrey
Published on 2010-04-27T18:54:57Z Indexed on 2010/04/29 2:17 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 226

Filed under:

objective-c

|

daemon

|

user-agent

I have an application with 2 components: a desktop application that users interact with, and a background process that can be enabled from the desktop application. Once the background process is enabled, it will run as a user launch agent independently of the desktop app.

However, what I'm wondering is what to do when the user disables the background process. At this point I want to stop the background process but I'm not sure what the best approach is. The 3 options that I see are:

Use the 'kill' command.
- Direct, but not reliable and just seems somewhat "wrong".
Use an NSMachPort to send an exit request from the desktop app to the background process.
- This is the best approach I've thought of but I've run into an implementation problem (I'll be posting this in a separate query) and I'd like to be sure that the approach is right before going much further.
Something else???

Thank you in advance for any help/insight that you can offer.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about objective-c

Blocking access to websites with objective-C / root privileges in objective-C

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am writing a program in Objective-C (XCode 3.2, on Snow Leopard) that is capable of either selectively blocking certain sites for a duration or only allow certain sites (and thus block all others) for a duration. The reasoning behind this program is rather simple. I tend to get distracted when I… >>> More
Objective-C with some Objective-C++, calling a normal c++ method "referenced from" problem

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I made an Objective-C project for the iPhone. I had only one cpp class, the soundEngine taken from some Apple demo. Now I'm trying to merge OpenFeint which is coded in Objective-C++. As soon as I drop in the code without even referring to it from my code, when I hit Build, my Objective-C code… >>> More
Add an objective @property attribute in objective-c

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Does anyone know of a way to add additional attribute types to the @property keyword without modifying the compiler? Or can anyone think of another way to genericize getter/setter creation? Basically, I have a lot of cases in a recent project where it's handy for objects to lazily instantiate their… >>> More
ObjectiveC builtin template system ?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am developing an iPhone application and I use HTML to display formatted text. I often display the same webpage, but with a different content. I would like to use a template HTML file, and then fill it with my diffent values. I wonder if ObjectiveC has a template system similar to ERB in Ruby. That… >>> More
ObjectiveC Syntax for Specifying Protocol Name in Method Argument

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
What's the ObjectiveC syntax for specifying a protocol as an argument in a method? Say I have 2 protocols, MyProtocol and MyProtocolCB: @protocol MyProtocolCB <NSObject> - (void) func; @end @protocol MyProtocol <NSObject> - (void) register:(MyProtocolCB*) cb; @end I'm receiving this… >>> More

Related posts about daemon

Unable to configure a service to run at startup with update-rc.d

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I would like to have transmission-daemon and vnstat automatically run at startup. I was able to configure this for apache2 and proftpd with exactly the same commands. 795 sudo update-rc.d transmission-daemon remove 797 sudo update-rc.d -f transmission-daemon remove 798 sudo update-rc.d transmission-daemon… >>> More
Launching a PHP daemon from an LSB init script w/ start-stop-daemon

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm writing an lsb init script (admittedly something I've never done from scratch) that launches a php script that daemonizes itself. The php script starts off like so: #!/usr/bin/env php <?php /* do some stuff */ It's then started like so in the init script: # first line is args to start-stop-daemon… >>> More
External Monitors shut off when Laptop Lid closes

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have researched the solution... gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/buttons/lid_ac "nothing" does not fix it. I have two external monitors and when I close my lid the settings are reset and the laptop's monitor is set to the default. Thanks! gsettings list-recursively… >>> More
How to prevent screen locking when lid is closed?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have Ubuntu 11.10 with Gnome 3 (no Unity), gnome-screen-saver has been removed and replaced with xscreensaver. The screensaver stuff all works fine -- no complaints there. When I close my laptop lid, even for a second, the screen locks (and the dialog box asking for my password is xscreensaver's)… >>> More
WD MBWE II (White Strip Light) 2TB - unable to access data

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have a WD MBWE II (White Strip Light) 2TB - (WD20000H2NC-00) Was working fine until a few days ago. I guess there was a power failure and after that I am unable to access the 'Public' or the 'Download' folder anymore. I have been searching for answers everywhere but came up empty handed. Web… >>> More