# Why Awake's helper is a LaunchDaemon and not a sudoers rule

- Date: 27 July 2026
- Project: awake
- Tags: macOS, Systems, Security

> The whole point of the app is asking for a password once instead of every time. Only one of the two options survives a reboot, and that decides it.

Stopping a Mac from sleeping means calling `pmset`, and `pmset` needs root.
The goal was to ask for a password **once**, not on every toggle.

## The alternative

A `sudoers` rule scoped to the two `pmset` invocations. It is the common
answer, it is one file, and it works.

It also has to be installed with a password prompt anyway, and — the part that
settles it — it grants the capability to any invocation of that command, from
anywhere, forever, with no process of our own in the middle.

## What it is instead

A LaunchDaemon. It is installed once while already root (`sudo make install`,
so no extra prompt), it survives reboots, and it is the only thing in the app
that ever calls `pmset` — with fixed arguments and no payload from the caller.

## The limitation I will state rather than hide

The app talks to the helper over `notify(3)`, and those channels are global
and unauthenticated: any process on the machine can post `com.awake.on`. What
that grants is exactly one thing — toggling `disablesleep` — because the events
carry no arguments and the helper's command line is fixed.

That is the same capability surface as the password-less sudoers rule I just
argued against. The difference is not the surface; it is that this version
survives a reboot, which is the feature.

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Page: https://eitanf.com/notes/launchdaemon-not-sudoers · Español: https://eitanf.com/es/notes/launchdaemon-not-sudoers.md · llms.txt: https://eitanf.com/llms.txt