Big Sur - LaunchAgents - Load error 5: input/output error

Question

Hi all,

I am having a mysterious problem trying to load a user LaunchAgent under Big Sur - It is the .plist of gniemetz's automount.sh

Code Block  https://github.com/gniemetz/automount

for mounting SMB shares via pwd access from the Keychain -

Placed the .sh into /usr/local/bin, chmod 644 and chown user:staff

Placed the LaunchAgent .plist into ~/Library/LaunchAgents (created LaunchAgents it as it didn't exist), same chmod/chown.

Code Block ~/Librarydrwxr-xr-x    3   users     96 Nov  1 22:13 LaunchAgents
~/Library/LaunchAgents
-rw-r--r--    1   users   1038 Nov  1 22:13 it.niemetz.automount.plist
/usr/local
drwxr-xr-x    4 root    wheel    128 Nov  1 21:52 bin
/usr/local/bin
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root    wheel  30310 Oct 29 21:58 automount.sh

then the following:

Code Block launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/it.niemetz.automount.plist Load failed: 5: Input/output error

For the life of me, I cannot find anywhere what this means...

Code Block launchctl start ~/Library/LaunchAgents/it.niemetz.automount.plist

completes with no errors, syntax also parses OK

Code Block plutil -lint ~/Library/LaunchAgents/it.niemetz.automount.plist /Users//Library/LaunchAgents/it.niemetz.automount.plist: OK

I have added Terminal and /bin/bash to Full Disk Access under Security...

Launching the script manually as /usr/local/bin/automount.sh works fine.

Console shows

Code Block launchctl load: system.log shows this when load -w is run:
00:27:14 mac-mini-Big-Sur com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.user.domain.1000002.100006.Aqua): entering bootstrap mode
Nov  3 00:27:14 mac-mini-Big-Sur com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.user.domain.1000002.100006.Aqua): exiting bootstrap mode

For easy reference the .plist is pasted at the end -

Anyone seen this error before?

Thanks!

++

Code Block 	Label
	it.niemetz.automount
	LimitLoadToSessionType
	Aqua
	RunAtLoad
	
	WatchPaths
	
		/etc/resolv.conf
		/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist
		/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
	
	ProgramArguments
	
		/usr/local/bin/automount.sh
		--mountall

Service Management

29k

Posted by

lordbyte

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Answer 1

Hello, Discovering my plist was not working since the Big Sur update, it seems the issue was my shell script was located in the ~/Documents/ folder, and seen as forbidden for security reasons. I moved my script in another folder (in ~/ ), unload and load again, and it worked.

Posted by

agateway

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Answer 2

Hello, the same happened to my system. I placed a small shell script in /usr/local/bin and it worked fine when I call it from the Terminal. After trying to load the launchctl command I got the "Load failed: 5: Input/output error" My plist file was very simple and plutil check was w/o any complains.

[mf@Server]:/Users/xyz/Library/LaunchAgents $ launchctl load local.demo.plist Load failed: 5: Input/output error Try running launchctl bootstrap as root for richer errors.

   [mf@Server]:/Users/xyz/Library/LaunchAgents $ plutil local.demo.plist local.demo.plist: OK

After moving this script into /Users/xyz/ it worked fine.

Posted by

MichaFischer1959

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Answer 3

Consider this small script:

% cat /usr/local/bin/greetings.sh 
#! /bin/sh

logger 'Hello Cruel World!'

It’s marked as executable:

% ls -l /usr/local/bin/greetings.sh 
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  40  9 Jul 12:23 /usr/local/bin/greetings.sh

Now consider this launchd property list file:

% cat com.example.test665661.plist 
<?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.test665661</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/greetings.sh</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

You can load this as a job:

% launchctl load com.example.test665661.plist

IMPORTANT Because I didn’t use sudo, this is loaded as a launchd agent in the current session.

And then start it:

% launchctl start com.example.test665661

And in console you see this:

type: default
time: 12:32:02.647234+0100
process: logger
category: -
message: Hello Cruel World!

I ran this all on macOS 13.4.1 but it should work this way on any version of macOS that supports launchd (so 10.5 and later).

Oh, and to tidy up:

% launchctl unload com.example.test665661.plist
% rm com.example.test665661.plist 
% sudo rm /usr/local/bin/greetings.sh

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Posted by

eskimo

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Big Sur - LaunchAgents - Load error 5: input/output error

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