Using Custom Software to create a Launch Daemon or Launch Agent – Addigy

This article is intended to fulfill the need to run a script upon login using Addigy's Custom Software. For information on creating Custom Software check out our Creating Custom Software KB article.

To set up a script to run at login, you will need to create either a Launch Daemon or a Launch Agent. A Launch Daemon will run the script as root, while a Launch Agent will run as the logged-in user. This is determined on which folder the settings defined by the property list, also known as a .plist, is copied to:

/Library/LaunchDaemon = run as root

/Library/LaunchAgents = run as logged-in user

Your Custom Software will need two files:

1. The script that you want to run at login

2. The previously mentioned .plist

To create the .plist copy this text and save it as a .plist.

Note: Make sure the Program key's string, has the correct path to the script, in this case take the directory of the Custom Software /Library/Addigy/packages/MapNetworkDriveLogin (1.0.0) and then add the .sh file to the end, which in the case of this as seen at the bottom of the article, would be mapnetdrive.sh.

<?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>Label</key>

<string>com.example.app</string>

<key>Program</key>

<string>/Library/Addigy/Name_of_Script.sh</string>

<key>RunAtLoad</key>

<true/>

</dict>

</plist>

For the Installation Script of the Custom Software, you will need to change the permission of the script, move the files to either /Library/LaunchDaemon or /Library/LaunchAgents, and then finally load the plist.

This is what the Installation Script will look like.

Note: Replace Name_of_Script, Name_of_Property_List.plist, and which folder to move the .plist to:

#Change permission of the script

chmod +x ./Name_of_Script.sh

#Move the files to their appropriate directory

cp Name_of_Script.sh /Library/Addigy/
cp Name_of_Property_List.plist /Library/LaunchAgents/

#Load the .plist

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchAgents/Name_of_Property_List.plist

This is what the finished Custom Software will look like. In this example I set up a Launch Agent that will mount a network drive to the device:

Additional: The mapnetdrive.sh contains this code:

#!/bin/bash

open "smb://username:password@Server/path/to/folder"