Detecting debugger on Mac OS X

Question

I am trying to detect whether my process is being run in a debugger or not and, while in Windows there are many solutions and in Linux I use:

ptrace(PTRACE_ME,0         


        

Answer 1

Here's a Swift version of the function from Apple Technical Q&A QA1361:

import Foundation

extension ProcessInfo {
    /// - returns: true if the process is being debugged, else false.
    public func isBeingDebugged() -> Bool {
        // https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/qa/qa1361/_index.html
        // Technical Q&A QA1361: Detecting the Debugger

        var mib: [Int32] = [
            CTL_KERN,
            KERN_PROC,
            KERN_PROC_PID,
            processIdentifier
        ]

        var info = kinfo_proc()
        var size: size_t = MemoryLayout.size(ofValue: info)

        let rc = sysctl(&mib, UInt32(mib.count), &info, &size, nil, 0)
        assert(rc == 0)

        return (info.kp_proc.p_flag & P_TRACED) != 0
    }
}

Usage:

if ProcessInfo.processInfo.isBeingDebugged() {
     print("running under the debugger")
}