Look up macOS system binaries

qalmakka

One thing that always grinds my gears is how the macOS filesystem is a hodgepodge of stuff thrown around without any apparent logic (similarly to Windows), which is in stark contrast to the also apparently illogical but standardised hierarchy of Linux and the BSDs. I do understand their need to keep the /System directory around for the Classic days, but /usr? /sbin? The only "fixed" file should be /usr/bin/env, all the rest should be in /System. The mix of classic UNIX directories and Classic is annoying

latexr

Looks pretty much abandoned. First thing I looked for was jq (added in Sequoia) but it isn’t there. Then I looked at the repo. All commit activity was during the same week, three years ago. A couple issues opened, with no progress.

ysleepy

I'd love to see some deeper automated analysis.

For example the XPC endpoints the binary offers and a list of other binaries which reference those.

Maybe the launch modalities, system vs. User session, which paths it reads/writes.

Not sure if all of those things can be staically determined by some tooling, but it would be really helpful.

burnt-resistor

Basically, links to virustotal and results of running in their sandboxes.

burnt-resistor

It seems to work for most stuff in /usr/{,s}bin /{,s}bin /usr/libexec but not all of /System/Library just yet.

Automator Installer -> /System/Library/CoreServices/Automator Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/Automator Installer

"There is no exact information for this binary file."

webdavfs_agent -> /System/Library/Extensions/webdav_fs.kext/Contents/Resources/webdavfs_agent

"The webdavfs_agent binary is unknown"

evolve2k

Pretty cool tool, I used it to lookup system ruby.

https://macosbin.com/bin/ruby

Younger me loved that Apple used Ruby and that Ruby was “pre installed” on the Mac.

This of course was because macOS relies on Ruby for certain things. However as a more experienced dev, the system Ruby (which is almost always very outdated), really gets in the way especially for beginners.

Anyone have more background on system Ruby and why it’s in macOS?

qalmakka

> the system Ruby (which is almost always very outdated), really gets in the way

This also applies to Perl and especially Python. While relying on system Perl is bad but not terrible (Perl is very backward compatible, has good versioning of features, ...), I always have to fight against Mac users that keep using the outdated system Python instead of pulling a new one from Brew. Don't use the system interpreters folks! This is not Linux

lloeki

Back then macOS as a platform was quite polyglot with multiple scripting languages and bindings/bridges to ObjC. Being an OOTB dev box was a feature, notably with Web 2.0, and there was Rails right there as well as Apache too, and a thing called Mac OS X Server. IIRC they even had Java in there, with WebObjects, until the Oracle debacle.

Today on Tahoe, this is what remains:

    $ uname -sr
    Darwin 25.0.0
    $ /usr/bin/ruby --version
    ruby 2.6.10p210 (2022-04-12 revision 67958) [universal.arm64e-darwin25]
    $ /usr/bin/bundle --version
    Bundler version 1.17.2
    $ /usr/bin/gem --version
    3.0.3.1
    $ /usr/bin/rails 
    Rails is not currently installed on this system. To get the latest version, simply type:
    
        $ sudo gem install rails

    You can then rerun your "rails" command.

    $ perl -v
    This is perl 5, version 34, subversion 1 (v5.34.1) built for darwin-thread-multi-2level
    (with 2 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)

    $ python3 --version
    Python 3.9.6

One can note the irony of the most up to date of those being Perl, probably a testament to its insane backwards compatibility.

zhaohu

[dead]

HN

Look up macOS system binaries

Look up macOS system binaries