prefsniff 0.1.0b1

macOS defaults(1) command generator

Prefsniff

Author: Zachary Cutlip, uid000 at gmail

prefsniff is a utility to watch macOS plist files for changes, and then autogenerate the defaults command to apply those changes. Its intended use is to have prefsniff watch a plist file while setting a system or application preference. The resulting defaults command can then be added to a shell script or incorporated into a configuration management system such as Ansible.

Installing

$ git clone <repo url> prefsniff
$ cd prefsniff
$ pip install -r ./requirements.txt

Using

prefsniff has two modes of operation; directory mode and file mode.

• Directory mode: watch a directory (non-recursively) for plist files that are unlinked and replaced in order to observe what file backs a particular configuration setting.
• File mode: watch a plist file in order to represent its changes as one or more defaults command.

Directory mode example:

$ ./prefsniff ~/Library/Preferences/
Watching prefs file:
Detected change: [created] /Users/zach/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist.DnakVR2
Detected change: [modified] /Users/zach/Library/Preferences/
Detected change: [deleted] /Users/zach/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
Detected change: [modified] /Users/zach/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist.DnakVR2
Detected change: [moved] /Users/zach/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist.DnakVR2
Detected change: [modified] /Users/zach/Library/Preferences/

File mode example:

$ ./prefsniff ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
Watching prefs file: com.apple.dock.plist
*****************************

defaults write com.apple.dock orientation -string left

*****************************
Watching prefs file: com.apple.dock.plist

TODO

• Implement data and date plist types
• Clean up output so that it can be redirected to a shell script or similar
• Add additional output options (such as the name of a shell script to create)
• Split utility & API
  • Make prefsniff into a python module that exports API
  • Make a separate prefsniff command-line utility that uses the API