"Remoted" process - is this normal?

[bigmacguyver]

Hi all,

Never paid too much attention to the activity monitor but recently I noticed a process called “remoted” (Remote Service Discovery or something similar), under “Network”. Every few seconds it sends and receives small kB sized packets. Since I have disabled ALL sharing options, shouldn’t this be completely inactive? Is this normal? Even without internet access it just keeps sending and receiving.

Any experienced people here know what’s going on?

 

[Brian33]

I'm confident that it's a normal system process and nothing to worry about. It's running on my Mac (Monterey). The Terminal command 'man remoted' says:

remoted – Remote Service Discovery daemon
remoted is a daemon that discovers remote devices and services.

It's definitely a standard part of macOS. I think it is looking for other "services" available on your local network. For example, another Mac that might have file sharing enabled, printer sharing on your network, or remote login enabled.

Even if you have all Sharing features disabled on all your Macs (or even if you have only one Mac), it makes sense to me that this process would be running anyway -- to look for any remote services that become newly enabled on your local network. I believe it has nothing to do with Internet access, so again it makes sense to me it would be (somewhat) active even if the Internet is not available.

It's nothing to worry about. But it is fun to explore with Activity Monitor the world of background processes!

 

[bigmacguyver]

Thanks for the reply Brian. What made me suspicious was that when asking a friend, his appears to be completely inactive, zero packets being sent whereas mine just keeps on sending/receiving.

So my thought was although the process itself is native to the OS, maybe there is some type of malware that is dependent on the remote process, keeping it continually active? Maybe I’m just being paranoid here?

 

[kschendel]

Under System Preferences, Sharing, do you have Remote Login or Remote Management checked?

I doubt that it has anything to do with malware.

 

[bigmacguyver]

Under System Preferences, Sharing, do you have Remote Login or Remote Management checked?

I doubt that it has anything to do with malware.

No, all are unchecked. Today I opened up my old Macbook (different computer) that I haven't used in about a year - the remoted process there shows zero activity under Network.

Does anybody else have their remoted process sending and receiving packets under Activity Monitor - Network, despite all sharing options turned off?

 

[Saturn007]

No activity for Remoted on my 2015 MBA. Monterey OS.

Under Sharing, all options are OFF except for Bluetooth.

But, under System Prefs, Security and Privacy, I also have the Firewall On and, within that, “Block all incoming connections” checked, too. That blocks all sharing services. Yes, when I do Air Drop, not often, I have to uncheck that, but it keeps things more secure in the interim.

I turned them off for a few moments and remoted did not change. However, some process AccountViewerRemote or some such became active. So, I turned everything back on.

Hope that helps. Which OS are you using?

 

[bigmacguyver]

No activity for Remoted on my 2015 MBA. Monterey OS.

Under Sharing, all options are OFF except for Bluetooth.

But, under System Prefs, Security and Privacy, I also have the Firewall On and, within that, “Block all incoming connections” checked, too. That blocks all sharing services. Yes, when I do Air Drop, not often, I have to uncheck that, but it keeps things more secure in the interim.

I turned them off for a few moments and remoted did not change. However, some process AccountViewerRemote or some such became active. So, I turned everything back on.

Hope that helps. Which OS are you using?

I'm on the latest version of Ventura. I also have the firewall on (always have). Even when I unplug the ethernet cable, it still appears active, sending and receiving packets. Wifi is also off of course, along with Bluetooth and Air Drop.

I just don't get why it would it would be doing that with all the sharing options off, and it apparently doesn't behave like that on any other computer that I know of...

 

[kschendel]

I don't think anything nefarious is going on, however it might be time to employ a network snooper such as Little Snitch just to see what it's doing!

 

[hobowankenobi]

remoted is a daemon that discovers remote devices and services.

Info here:

What is the "remoted" process in activity… - Apple Community

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