My software is a daemon that is launched via a plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons . Naturally it does not have GUI and other than configuring the runtime during its installation (.pkg) I imagined that creating a System Preferences plugin for my software would allow a privileged user to make changes to the software's runtime configuration. For example the plugin would allow a privileged user to start and stop the daemon. The installer plugin and its helper were setup and signed so that they - in theory - should work together like the SMJobBless examples do. The only difference from examples like EvenBetterAuthorizationSample from what I can tell is that those examples are using a *.app as opposed to a *.prefPane . The SMJobBless error message output to console is: The operation couldn’t be completed. (CFErrorDomainLaunchd error 2.) Is there a limitation in using System Preferences/Settings with SMJobBless?