After I upgraded to MacOS Ventura, I see connection requests from wifivelocityd trying to run
/usr/sbin/traceroute -n -m 6 -i en1 -w 2 -q 1 captive.apple.com
Why would a utility designed for wifi connectivity need to know they path/number of hops to any server (Apple or otherwise) beyond the wifi access point? Why should I allow this connection?
iMac (24-inch, M1, 2021, 2 ports)
Hi Leroy,
I know traceroute well. My question is why is the WiFiVelocity daemon calling traceroute in the first place? This is the suspicious part. wifivelocityd is an
XPC helper for performing system context actions for the WiFiVelocity framework
Per Apple's own definition of XPC
XPC Services API provides a lightweight mechanism for basic interprocess communication at the libSystem level.
XPC | Apple Developer Documentation
Further, com.apple.wifivelocity has an entry
'comment' : 'Used by the WiFiVelocity framework to restrict XPC services',
So, why would this XPC service, designed to support wifi connections not Internet connections, make a call to a network utility to see if it can phone home? Doesn't make sense.
Bottom line is, what functionality is not working by blocking this network activity?
Hi Leroy,
I know traceroute well. My question is why is the WiFiVelocity daemon calling traceroute in the first place? This is the suspicious part. wifivelocityd is an
XPC helper for performing system context actions for the WiFiVelocity framework
Per Apple's own definition of XPC
XPC Services API provides a lightweight mechanism for basic interprocess communication at the libSystem level.
XPC | Apple Developer Documentation
Further, com.apple.wifivelocity has an entry
'comment' : 'Used by the WiFiVelocity framework to restrict XPC services',
So, why would this XPC service, designed to support wifi connections not Internet connections, make a call to a network utility to see if it can phone home? Doesn't make sense.
Bottom line is, what functionality is not working by blocking this network activity?
mikepl wrote:
After I upgraded to MacOS Ventura, I see connection requests from wifivelocityd trying to run
/usr/sbin/traceroute -n -m 6 -i en1 -w 2 -q 1 captive.apple.com
Why would a utility designed for wifi connectivity need to know they path/number of hops to any server (Apple or otherwise) beyond the wifi access point? Why should I allow this connection?
I see no issue here.
This is a unix executable baked into the macOS.
you can see this from Terminal, copy and paste:
ls -a /usr/libexec
are you having some associated issue?
you can read more from Terminal:
man wifivelocityd | more
The current stable release of Ventura including bug fixes, security updates is macOS Ventura 13.2.1
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
If you suspect a vulnerability here you can share you feedback with Apple
Report a security or privacy vulnerability - Apple Support
mikepl wrote:
Bottom line is, what functionality is not working by blocking this network activity?
You can run a sample from the Activity Monitor....
or to drill down further refer to
https://discussions.apple.com/community/developer_forums
Customer Support (800) MY–APPLE (800–692–7753)
or on line https://getsupport.apple.com
Suspicious activity? Why is wifivelocityd calling traceroute?