<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="autostart-osx">
  <title>macOS: Starting the Autostart Service With launchd</title>
  
  <body>
    <p>On macOS, launchd is used to start the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> autostart service.
      An example configuration file can be found in
        <filepath>/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/org.virtualbox.vboxautostart.plist</filepath>. To enable
      the service copy the file to <filepath>/Library/LaunchDaemons</filepath> and change the <codeph>Disabled</codeph>
      key from <codeph>true</codeph> to <codeph>false</codeph>. Furthermore replace the second parameter to an existing
      configuration file which has the same format as on Linux, see <xref href="autostart-linux.dita#autostart-linux"/>. </p>
    <p>To manually start the service use the following command: </p>
    <pre xml:space="preserve"># launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.vboxautostart.plist</pre>
    <p>For additional information on how launchd services can be configured see: </p>
    <p><ph>http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/BPSystemStartup.html</ph>.
      </p>
  </body>
  
</topic>
