macOS: detached herdr server leaves panes with no launchd bootstrap port, breaking DNS / getaddrinfo

[bbapplications]

question

Should be a bu rport - but i am not allowed to report.
I think there are nay macos users allready fell in love with herdr like me.
If someone has a solution for this issue...

macOS: detached herdr server leaves panes with no launchd bootstrap port, breaking DNS / getaddrinfo

Summary

When detaching, please preserve at least the system bootstrap port for spawned panes (ideally join the user's Aqua domain), the way tmux and screen do. That would keep getaddrinfo / DNS-by-name and other Mach-service clients working inside panes without giving up persistence.

Environment

• macOS 26.5.2
• herdr 0.7.1
• Install method: brew `
• Shell: zsh

Symptoms (measured inside a running herdr pane, read-only commands)

• launchctl managername → Could not get manager name. (no Aqua and no System bootstrap)
• curl https://example.com → exit, no connection (getaddrinfo fails)
• nslookup example.com → works and returns a valid IP
• The same commands from a normal GUI terminal (Terminal.app / iTerm launched from Dock/Spotlight) all work; launchctl managername there returns Aqua.

The split is consistent: nslookup / host succeed because they do their own DNS over raw sockets, while anything routing through getaddrinfo / mDNSResponder fails.

What I already ruled out

reattach-to-user-namespace does not help. The classic tmux fix fails here:

reattach-to-user-namespace launchctl managername
# warning: bootstrap_get_root failed
# unable to reattach

There is no root bootstrap to attach to in the first place, so this workaround cannot apply.

herdr --no-session is not a workaround when a persistent server is already running. From a normal GUI terminal, with the detached server up:

herdr --no-session
# error: herdr is already running
# socket: /Users/<me>/.config/herdr/herdr.sock

So the documented single-process escape hatch and an already-running persistent server are mutually exclusive. That means there is currently no way to have both persistence (detached server) and working DNS inside a pane at the same time.

Process ancestry

The pane process chain is launchd(1) -> herdr -> -zsh -> claude -> zsh. herdr hangs directly off launchd with no registered plist (nothing under ~/Library/LaunchAgents or /Library/LaunchDaemons). The pane shell reports tty = ?? and session = 0: no controlling terminal, no GUI session context.

Impact

This is not just a convenience issue. The detached server is exactly what enables the documented "SSH in from a phone/tablet and reattach" workflow. Because the same detach is what strips the bootstrap port, the two capabilities I actually want, remote reattach from an iPad and working DNS inside panes, are mutually exclusive today. --no-session restores DNS only by removing the persistent server, which is the thing the remote reattach depends on.

Expected behavior

When detaching, please preserve at least the system bootstrap port for spawned panes (ideally join the user's Aqua domain), the way tmux and screen do. That would keep getaddrinfo / DNS-by-name and other Mach-service clients working inside panes without giving up persistence.

Minimal reproduction

1. On macOS, start herdr normally (detached server) from a GUI terminal.
2. In any pane, run launchctl managername. Expected today: Could not get manager name.
3. In the same pane, run curl -sSI https://registry.npmjs.org. Expected today: fails to resolve host.
4. For contrast, run the same two commands in a fresh Terminal.app / iTerm window: Aqua, and the curl succeeds.

Current workaround (for reference)

Single one-off fetch from inside a pane, bypassing getaddrinfo:

IP=$(nslookup registry.npmjs.org 1.1.1.1 | awk '/^Address: /{print $2; exit}')
curl --resolve registry.npmjs.org:443:$IP https://registry.npmjs.org

context

• macOS 26.5.2
• herdr 0.7.1
• Install method: brew `
• Shell: zsh

[pstayets]

Some data from the herdr side, since the detach itself may not be the culprit. herdr's server is spawned with a plain setsid() plus stdio to /dev/null (src/server/autodetect.rs, spawn_server_daemon), nothing that drops the Mach bootstrap port. On macOS 15.7.4 a process detached exactly that way still reports launchctl managername as Aqua, and curl https://example.com resolves fine inside it.

So the pane most likely inherited "no bootstrap" from wherever the first herdr command ran, because the server keeps the bootstrap of the process that spawned it and every pane inherits the server. Two cases produce exactly your symptoms: the first herdr was run over SSH, or from something launched outside the Aqua session (a cron job, a launchd job, a terminal opened from another daemon). Once that server is up, every later attach from a GUI terminal still gets its panes from the same session-less server.

Two things to try:

1. herdr server stop (or kill the server), then start herdr once from Terminal.app or iTerm launched from the Dock, and only afterwards attach over SSH. Check with launchctl managername inside a pane; it should say Aqua.
2. If you want it to survive logout and still have Aqua, register the server as a LaunchAgent in the gui domain instead of starting it from a shell: a plist with ProgramArguments = herdr server, loaded with launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) ~/Library/LaunchAgents/herdr.plist. Agents in the gui domain get the Aqua namespace, which is what tmux via reattach-to-user-namespace used to fake.

If a fresh server started from a Dock terminal still shows no manager name on 26.5.2, then Tahoe changed setsid semantics and that would be worth a bug report with that one line of output.