Installing on macOS
Continuous Integration currently tests stable release versions of osquery against macOS 10.14 (see the vmImage: macos-10.14
line in the CI configuration. There are no reported issues which block expected core functionality on 10.11 and greater, however 10.9 and previous macOS versions are not supported.
Package Installation
If you plan to manage an enterprise osquery deployment, the easiest installation method is a macOS package installer. You will have to manage and deploy updates.
Each osquery tag (release) builds a macOS package: osquery.io/downloads. There are no package or library dependencies.
The default package creates the following structure:
/private/var/osquery/com.facebook.osqueryd.plist
/private/var/osquery/osquery.example.conf
/private/var/log/osquery/
/private/var/osquery/lenses/{*}.aug
/private/var/osquery/packs/{*}.conf
/usr/local/lib/osquery/
/usr/local/bin/osqueryctl
/usr/local/bin/osqueryd
/usr/local/bin/osqueryi
This package does not install a LaunchDaemon to start osqueryd
. You may use the osqueryctl start
script to copy the sample launch daemon job plist and associated configuration into place.
Post installation steps
These steps only apply if this is the first time you have ever installed and run osqueryd
on this Mac.
After completing the package installation run the following commands. If you are using the Chef recipe to install osquery, then these steps are not necessary: the recipe has this covered.
# You can use the helper script:
sudo osqueryctl start
# Or, install the example config and launch daemon yourself:
sudo cp /var/osquery/osquery.example.conf /var/osquery/osquery.conf
sudo cp /var/osquery/com.facebook.osqueryd.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.facebook.osqueryd.plist
Removing osquery
To remove osquery from a macOS system, run the following commands:
# Unload and remove com.facebook.osquery.plist launchdaemon
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.facebook.osqueryd.plist
sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.facebook.osqueryd.plist
# Remove files/directories created by osquery installer pkg
sudo rm -rf /private/var/log/osquery
sudo rm -rf /private/var/osquery
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/osquery*
sudo pkgutil --forget com.facebook.osquery
Running osquery
To start a standalone osquery use: osqueryi
. This does not need a server or service. All the table implementations are included!
After exploring the rest of the documentation you should understand the basics of configuration and logging. These and most other concepts apply to osqueryd
, the daemon.
NOTICE: The interactive shell and daemon do not communicate!