How to Use Homebrew Services to Manage macOS Services

Edited 2 days ago by ExtremeHow Editorial Team

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Using Homebrew Services is a way to simplify the management of background programs, often called services or daemons on macOS. If you often use your Mac for development, you may need to run some background processes, such as databases, web servers, or other software that provide services. Managing these services can be cumbersome if you are doing it all manually. Homebrew Services can automate this process, making it easy to start, stop, and restart these services.

What are the services?

In the context of operating systems, services refer to programs or processes that run in the background to perform tasks. Unlike regular apps that have a user interface and require active user interaction, services silently handle tasks and processes that are vital to the system or other applications.

For developers, services can be databases, caching layers, search engines, or any number of daemons that their applications need to run to function properly. Good examples include PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, and Nginx. Homebrew, a widely used package manager for macOS, helps manage these services by leveraging its subcommand, `brew services`.

Getting started with Homebrew

Before you can use Homebrew services, you must install Homebrew. This is the package manager that allows you to install software from the command line on macOS. You can install Homebrew using the following command in the terminal:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

This command gets the latest version of Homebrew from the GitHub repository and installs it on your system. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process. Once Homebrew is installed, confirm its successful installation by checking the version using:

brew --version

Installing Brew Services

After setting up Homebrew, the next step is to create the Homebrew services themselves. Support for managing background services is built into Homebrew itself; you don't need to install "Brew Services" separately.

To verify that the brew services are available, you can type the following in the terminal:

brew services list

If the command runs without any errors, it means that brew services is available and ready to use. This command will list all the services you currently have installed via Homebrew, along with their current status.

Using Homebrew Services

The command syntax for Homebrew Services is simple: brew services [COMMAND] [SERVICE]. Below is a description of common commands.

Start service

To start the service, use the following command:

brew services start <service-name>

For example, if you wanted to start the PostgreSQL database service, you would run:

brew services start postgresql

This command will start the postgresql service and configure it to start automatically at login. This is useful for services that you use all the time and want to run without having to start them manually every time you boot your system.

Stop the service

To stop a service, presumably because you no longer need it running, use:

brew services stop <service-name>

To stop this while keeping the PostgreSQL instance running you would do the following:

brew services stop postgresql

This stops the service, but it does not disable it from restarting on the next boot if it was set to start by default.

Restart the service

If you make changes to the configuration of a service and want to apply those changes, restart the service using the following:

brew services restart <service-name>

For example:

brew services restart postgresql

This stops and restarts the service, and applies any changes without requiring a boot.

Start on boot/system launch

Services can be configured to start when your system boots, ensuring they are running whenever you need them. The `brew services start` command already does this automatically. However, if you have stopped a service or disabled start on boot, and want to re-enable it, use this:

brew services start --all

This starts all services managed by brew and sets them to launch on boot.

List of all services

To get a comprehensive view of all the services you installed via Homebrew, their status (running or stopped) and whether they are set to start at boot, use the following command:

brew services list

This command provides an overview, listing all available services, specifying which services are running and their associated ports (if applicable).

Understanding service references

Homebrew Services uses a launch agent or launch daemon to manage services. Here is a brief description of how service references work:

- User Services: Services started by the user and run in the context of the user session. These services stop when the user logs out.

- System services: Services run in the context of the root user and can be started when the system boots. These persist through user login and logout.

Uninstalling the service

If you no longer need a particular service and want to remove it from your system completely, it's easy to do so:

brew uninstall <service-name>

This removes the service, but remember to stop it before uninstalling. For example:

brew services stop postgresql && brew uninstall postgresql

Troubleshooting

Despite its simplicity, you may encounter problems when managing services with Homebrew. Here are some common troubleshooting tips:

Service failed to start

If a service fails to start, check the following:

• Make sure the service is installed correctly via brew.
• Check the logs in the /usr/local/var/log/ directory for more details.
• Verify that all dependencies required by the service are installed and updated.

Service doesn't start on boot

If a service doesn't start on boot, try re-enabling it:

brew services restart <service-name>

Permission issues

If you get a permission denied message or similar errors:

• Confirm that you have sufficient permissions (administrator access).
• Some services need to run as root or through a user session, so adjust the settings or commands accordingly.

Conclusion

Homebrew Services is an efficient and convenient feature for developers and users who need to manage background services on macOS. The ability to easily start, stop, and restart services with one or two commands saves time and reduces errors when managing complex setups. With this simple interface, Homebrew Services helps Mac users ensure that their development environments are always running smoothly, contributing to a more productive and downtime-free workflow.

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