Mac lsof command find all processes for all users

Question

A while ago my teacher asked me to create a script that would kill Minecraft anytime it came up. It worked when the user themselves ran it, but it didn't if it was at root level.

Is there a command similar to lsof that found all processes, not just ones by the user that called lsof? I read the man page, but I'm not quite understanding it. Is there a lsof command that will get every single process, not just the users'?

This is the script, designed only for Macs:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
from time import sleep

while True:
    os.system("lsof | grep minecraft | cut -c 11-16 >mine.txt")
    f=open("mine.txt")
    l = f.readline()
    if len(l) > 0:
        os.system("kill "+l)
    f.close()
    os.system("echo > mine.txt")
    sleep(15)

Hey could I get my hands on that script? I could use it. I'd also like to expand it's capabilities so source code would be nice. — Griffin, Mar 09 '13 at 02:51
@Griffin Sure I'll edit into the question. It's fairly simple. — Hovestar, Mar 09 '13 at 02:54
Actually that's an even better idea. Showing them the source might give them a better understand of what to change. Sadly I can not help because I'd don't know but other who do might find it useful. — Griffin, Mar 09 '13 at 02:55
why are you using `lsof`? it's designed to list open files. i think it'd be better to use something like `ps`. and as for listing the processes of all the users... if memory serves, that's impossible, as it's a potential security issue — nc4pk, Mar 09 '13 at 03:04
I know a little ANSII C but not C++ I'll figure it out real quick then I'll get back to you, but unless the user themselves activates the code it's useless at this point. — Hovestar, Mar 09 '13 at 03:13
So I couldn't find a way of making terminal execute commands from c++, but if you could, and it sends the command lsof | grep minecraft | cut -c 11-16 >mine.txt then it reads from mine.txt and gets the first line, which is the pid, it then kills that pid. — Hovestar, Mar 09 '13 at 03:42

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:16

This prints the names of all processes:

ps -axco comm | sed 1d

-a: all users (like root when run as user and user when run as root)
-x: include processes without a controlling terminal
-o comm: output only the command column
-c: use command names instead of paths in the command column
sed 1d: delete the first line (COMM)

If you only want to quit Minecraft, you could run a shell script like this (or just killall minecraft with launchd or cron):

while sleep 5; do killall minecraft 2> /dev/null; done

kenorb · Answer 2 · 2017-10-19T15:31:51.033

a command similar to lsof that scan all processes, not just ones by the user that called lsof

pgrep -f minecraft

^{Where minecraft is the process to find. The command returns list of PIDs.}

Here is the kill command (shell syntax):

kill $(pgrep -f minecraft)

Instead of using Python, here is a simple shell command to achieve the same:

while true; do echo kill $(pgrep -f minecraft) 2> /dev/null; sleep 15; done

Mac lsof command find all processes for all users

2 Answers2