Getting a shell script full disk access from LaunchAgent

[toonetown]

So - I have a shell script that will work on Catalina when I run it from Terminal (I have added Terminal to "Full Disk Access"), but the script will not access anything in ~/Documents when I set it up to run as a LaunchAgent. I have even tried adding launchd to Full Disk Access and *nothing*. The individual script, /bin/bash, etc. have all turned out fruitless.

Has anyone had any luck specifying something in the security preference pane to allow for a script to run as a LaunchAgent and access "protected" resources?

 

[NoBoMac]

Wild guess here. Maybe make your script an app, then give the app permission in Security preferences?

Simple enough to just create the folder structure, put the script in, "chmod -R +rx my_app.app"

my_app.app
  |
  ---Contents
       |
       ----- MacOS
              |
              ----shell_script_here

ADD: the shell script needs to called same as the app. So in this case, "shell_script_here" needs to be "my_app" (with no .app).

And if want to hone some Mac skills, can use the Automator app to create your application: "New Document" > Application

 

[toonetown]

That’s a good idea...i don’t think you can just create an app like that with a script, but you can use Platypus to write a script-based app. That’s a great idea - I will have to try it out. Thanks!

 

[NoBoMac]

i don’t think you can just create an app like that with a script

Sure you can. Done it myself. Stock *nix stuff only (mkdir, vi, chmod). For example:

% find BoxSync.app
BoxSync.app
BoxSync.app/Contents
BoxSync.app/Contents/MacOS
BoxSync.app/Contents/MacOS/BoxSync

Spoiler: Script

#!/bin/sh
#
# copy select Dropbox folders to Box cloud service
#

d_dir="$HOME/Box Sync"

if [ ! -d "$d_dir" ]
then
echo "\"$d_dir\" is not mounted"
exit 1
fi

cd ~/Dropbox
rsync -a -L 'Freq Files' "$d_dir"
rsync -a -L 'Work Docs' "$d_dir"
rsync -a -L Travel "$d_dir"
rsync -a -L 'Computer Info' "$d_dir"

'/Applications/Box Sync.app/Contents/MacOS/Box Sync' &
exit 0

 

[TimothyR734]

If your script is this it goes in /Library/LaunchDaemons folder then reboot