What are these Period Scripts (security question)?

[AdiosVista]

Hi everyone,

I noticed a very odd set of scripts on my mac today (running all the latest updates) and am having a heck of a time finding any solid info. Here's what I found:

I have a /etc/defaults/periodic.conf that has mention of $FreeBSD in it and looks like it controls about 15 other daily/weekly/monthly scripts inside /etc/periodic/. Those 15 files have names like 130.clean-msgs, 400.status-disks, 199.clean-fax, and so on.

Furthermore, I checked for similar files on a separate Mac and didn't see them, so I'm becoming concerned if this is legit or some sort of exploit.

Any insight would be truly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

 

[chrfr]

Hi everyone,

I noticed a very odd set of scripts on my mac today (running all the latest updates) and am having a heck of a time finding any solid info. Here's what I found:

I have a /etc/defaults/periodic.conf that has mention of $FreeBSD in it and looks like it controls about 15 other daily/weekly/monthly scripts inside /etc/periodic/. Those 15 files have names like 130.clean-msgs, 400.status-disks, 199.clean-fax, and so on.

Furthermore, I checked for similar files on a separate Mac and didn't see them, so I'm becoming concerned if this is legit or some sort of exploit.

Any insight would be truly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

They're totally normal. I'm not sure why you don't see them on a different Mac, but they should be there. They're part of what the macOS and most Unix type systems do as routine self-maintenance.

 

[AdiosVista]

They're totally normal. I'm not sure why you don't see them on a different Mac, but they should be there. They're part of what the macOS and most Unix type systems do as routine self-maintenance.

Thank you very much for response! It's a relief to get another opinion on this concern. I wonder if the other Mac didn't have these because it's an older machine not running Mojave.

Also, for anyone else who might find this thread, I did some additional searching and found these same periodic scripts in these open source Apple files. Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe these look like legit Apple files now: https://opensource.apple.com/source/crontabs/crontabs-52/files/