I’m unable to schedule a periodic launch with launchctl/launchd on OS X (Leopard). Basically, I’m unable to find a step-by-step list of instructions on the web and the intuitive approach doesn’t work.

The sync.plist file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>net.madrat.utils.sync</string>
        <key>Program</key>
        <string>rsync</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>-ar</string>
            <string>/path/to/folder/</string>
            <string>/path/to/backup/</string>
        </array>
        <key>StartInterval</key>
        <integer>7200</integer>
    </dict>
</plist>

I’ve put this script inside the path ~/Library/LaunchAgents.

Next, I’ve registered the script using

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/sync.plist

Finally, to test that it works, I started the job:

 launchctl start net.madrat.utils.sync

– Nothing happened. Manually executing the rsync command in the terminal yields the expected result.

I’m fairly sure that the job was registered correctly because if I try to start a non-existing job, I get an error message (which I didn’t get in the above command).

What did I do wrong?