Command line utility

Little Snitch is scriptable, it comes with a command line tool. Since this littlesnitch command is very powerful and can potentially be misused by malware, most of its functionality is only available when enabled in Little Snitch > Settings > Security > Allow access via Terminal. We recommend that you enable access to the command line tool only if you need it. All relevant functions of littlesnitch require that it is called by the superuser root.

Functions in the command line interface cover the following areas:

Allowing configuration changes for mass deployment (for sysadmins of big companies).
Obtaining particular internal information to help debugging problems together with our support team.
Expert functionality such as traffic capturing and importing backups with user mapping.

Using built-in help

The command line tool comes with a built-in help system providing basic usage information. For a general help, use:

$ littlesnitch --help
usage: littlesnitch [-hv] [-u <user name or numeric ID>] command [<command
     args>]
  -h, --help
        Print a short list of available commands and options.
  -u, --user <user name or numeric ID>
        The command line tool is executed on behalf of a user. You can specify
        the user here.
  -v, --version
        Print the current version of Little Snitch.

Commands:
  list-preferences ... Lists all preferences.
  read-preference .... Reads a preference value.
  write-preference ... Writes a preference value.
  export-model ....... Exports the entire data model in JSON format (backup).
  restore-model ...... Restores the current data model from backup.
  debug-categories ... Sets categories to be logged in more detail.
  log ................ Reads Little Snitch log messages.
  log-traffic ........ Prints data from traffic log.
  recrypt-config ..... Copies configuration files changing encryption password.
  capture-traffic .... Captures traffic of a particular process or process pair.
  update-rule-groups . Updates factory rule groups with rules for currently installed apps.

For more information about a particular command use

    littlesnitch <command> --help

Most subcommands require that you run littlesnitch as root (sudo littlesnitch). If the command behaves differently for different users (e.g. setting a user specific preference), the value is changed for the user running sudo, not for root. If you want to change something on behalf of another user, use the --user option.