System management is a critical aspect of maintaining the health, performance, and security of any computing environment. For macOS, Apple provides a robust set of tools and commands that can be executed via the Terminal to manage various aspects of the system. This article will guide you through some essential system management tasks using macOS Terminal commands.

Examples:

1. Checking System Information

To get detailed information about your macOS system, you can use the system_profiler command. This command provides comprehensive details about the hardware, software, and network configurations.

system_profiler SPHardwareDataType

This command will output information such as the model name, processor name, number of processors, total number of cores, and more.

2. Managing Processes

To view the currently running processes, you can use the ps command. For a more detailed view, you can combine it with other options.

ps aux

This command lists all running processes along with their user, CPU and memory usage, and the command that started the process.

3. Disk Usage

To check the disk usage of your file system, you can use the df command.

df -h

The -h flag makes the output human-readable by showing sizes in KB, MB, or GB.

4. Managing Users

To add a new user to the system, you can use the dscl command.

sudo dscl . -create /Users/newuser
sudo dscl . -create /Users/newuser UserShell /bin/bash
sudo dscl . -create /Users/newuser RealName "New User"
sudo dscl . -create /Users/newuser UniqueID "1001"
sudo dscl . -create /Users/newuser PrimaryGroupID 80
sudo dscl . -create /Users/newuser NFSHomeDirectory /Users/newuser
sudo dscl . -passwd /Users/newuser password

This series of commands creates a new user with the username newuser and sets their shell, real name, unique ID, primary group ID, home directory, and password.

5. Updating the System

To update macOS and installed applications, you can use the softwareupdate command.

sudo softwareupdate -i -a

This command checks for and installs all available updates.

6. Network Configuration

To view the current network configuration, you can use the ifconfig command.

ifconfig

This command displays information about all network interfaces on your system.

7. Managing Services

To manage system services, you can use the launchctl command.

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.example.service.plist
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.example.service.plist

These commands load and unload a service defined by the specified plist file.