Troubleshooting
This page outlines common troubleshooting steps for confirming proper Santa daemon operation and steps to diagnose and correct common issues.
Confirming Proper Santa Daemon Operation
The best way to start diagnosing the Santa daemon is by running:
/usr/local/bin/santactl status
If the daemon is up and running, you should see normal status output.
However, if you see a message like "An error occurred communicating with the Santa daemon...
", then use the following tips to diagnose the issue.
Run the doctor command
The doctor command checks Santa and its configuration for potential problems.
sudo santactl doctor
Enabling Full Disk Access
The Santa daemon is required by the system to have "Full Disk Access" enabled in order to function. On recent macOS versions, you can ensure this is enabled using System Settings:
- Open System Settings from the Apple menu
- In the left pane, click on "Privacy & Security"
- In the right pane, click on "Full Disk Access"
- Ensure that
com.northpolesec.santa.daemon
is selected
If "Full Disk Access" wasn't enabled, re-check santactl status
to see if the
issue is now resolved. Note that it may take up to 15 seconds for the daemon
to become active if no other issues are present.
Enabling the System Extension
To confirm the Santa system extension is properly loaded, check the output of the following command:
/usr/bin/systemextensionsctl list com.apple.system_extension.endpoint_security
Confirm that a line item exists for com.northpolesec.santa.daemon
with the
expected version and the state is activated enabled
.
If the extension is in the activated waiting for the user
state, it must
first be approved to run using System Settings:
- Open System Settings from the Apple menu.
- In the left pane, click on "General"
- In the right pane, click on "Login Items & Extensions"
- Scroll to "Endpoint Security Extensions" and click the info button
- Ensure that "Santa" is toggled on.
If Santa wasn't enabled, re-check systemextensionsctl list
. If it's still
not in the activated enabled
state, try forcing the extension to load:
/Applications/Santa.app/Contents/MacOS/Santa --load-system-extension
After loading, re-check the output of systemextensionsctl list
. If issues
persist, reinstall Santa.
Checking Santa Daemon Logs
The Santa daemon emits warning and error messages for encountered issues. If it fails to start, check the logs for the cause. Daemon logs can be viewed with the following command:
/usr/bin/log stream --level debug --predicate 'sender == "com.northpolesec.santa.daemon"'
Enterprise Deployments
Enterprise deployments are typically managed via MDM, so administrators should follow the guide on the Getting Started page for information on creating the necessary configuration profiles.
To diagnose a user device, administrators should first confirm that the MDM is supervising the computer (via DEP or UAMDM) using the following command:
/usr/bin/profiles status -type enrollment
Profile payloads that require a supervision relationship cannot be applied manually for testing. Therefore, it's crucial to ensure the MDM connection is working as expected during mass deployments.
Additionally, confirm the system extension and TCC/PPPC profiles are present, as described in the Getting Started flow.
Verifying Expected Functionality
After confirming that Santa is running, you can verify that settings are being
applied as expected by running santactl status
.
Additionally, reviewing Santa's logs and telemetry is helpful for understanding Santa's operation. The documentation on binary authorization explains precedence and decision-making.