Managing data use w/ OS X 10.10.2 on a metered connection?
May 2, 2015 12:39 PM Subscribe
My father's Macbook Pro is consuming bandwidth at a prodigious rate, and he's on a metered data connection (10gb/month 4g data). What should I be sure to disable so he can control when the system wants to run updates? List of what I've already tried inside.
My dad has a 2008 MBP. Since I gave it to him in 2012, he's been using it without problems on his metered connection. However, back at Christmas I updated him to OS X 10.10.2. I also suggested he try running Chrome, since Firefox was not handling the memory-constrained environment (2gb RAM, which he's now upgraded to 4gb). Starting midway through April, the system downloaded several large things without asking first, and he's hit overage charges on his connection -- he actually had to turn off his access point entirely for a few days last month, and now that he's turned it back on, he's seeing more unwanted use.
I've advised him to run Activity Monitor and keep an eye on download use. Right now the offending process seems to be nsurlsessiond, which is OS X's download management library, used by just about everything, it seems like. This morning while on the phone with me, he enabled wifi and almost immediately nsurlsessiond downloaded ~1gb!
I had him disable wifi and drive to a public wifi hotspot, where I did some remote support via TeamViewer.
Before this morning, I had already set the App Store to never download w/o user action. Today I disabled iCloud entirely, disabled Spotlight 'bing search,' and 'spotlight suggestions,' and disabled Chrome auto updates (but created a desktop shortcut he can run when he's on public wifi).
I've also shown him how to run Activity Monitor to manage network traffic. I asked him to $ sudo lsof -i and paste the results to me in an email, if the unwanted data use reoccurs while he's watching -- hopefully whatever nsurlsessiond is connecting to will give me a clue. I've advised him to keep his wifi off while he's not actively browsing, too.
For the record, my dad's pretty tech-savvy -- he was a Novell CNE in the 90s, before he retired -- but not really up to speed with TCP/IP or modern unix-like OSes. He can't change to an unmetered connection because 4G data is the only thing aside from dialup available where he lives -- no cable down his street, and too far from the CO for DSL. Satellite isn't an option because of both caps and latency. We're looking for ways to manage unwanted downloads so he can get the most out of his 4G modem. He also has an iPad and an iPhone 6 connected to the modem's wifi, but we're pretty sure the computer is at fault -- big downloads occurred while he inadvertently left the machine on while on an overnight trip away from his home with both other devices.
My dad has a 2008 MBP. Since I gave it to him in 2012, he's been using it without problems on his metered connection. However, back at Christmas I updated him to OS X 10.10.2. I also suggested he try running Chrome, since Firefox was not handling the memory-constrained environment (2gb RAM, which he's now upgraded to 4gb). Starting midway through April, the system downloaded several large things without asking first, and he's hit overage charges on his connection -- he actually had to turn off his access point entirely for a few days last month, and now that he's turned it back on, he's seeing more unwanted use.
I've advised him to run Activity Monitor and keep an eye on download use. Right now the offending process seems to be nsurlsessiond, which is OS X's download management library, used by just about everything, it seems like. This morning while on the phone with me, he enabled wifi and almost immediately nsurlsessiond downloaded ~1gb!
I had him disable wifi and drive to a public wifi hotspot, where I did some remote support via TeamViewer.
Before this morning, I had already set the App Store to never download w/o user action. Today I disabled iCloud entirely, disabled Spotlight 'bing search,' and 'spotlight suggestions,' and disabled Chrome auto updates (but created a desktop shortcut he can run when he's on public wifi).
I've also shown him how to run Activity Monitor to manage network traffic. I asked him to $ sudo lsof -i and paste the results to me in an email, if the unwanted data use reoccurs while he's watching -- hopefully whatever nsurlsessiond is connecting to will give me a clue. I've advised him to keep his wifi off while he's not actively browsing, too.
For the record, my dad's pretty tech-savvy -- he was a Novell CNE in the 90s, before he retired -- but not really up to speed with TCP/IP or modern unix-like OSes. He can't change to an unmetered connection because 4G data is the only thing aside from dialup available where he lives -- no cable down his street, and too far from the CO for DSL. Satellite isn't an option because of both caps and latency. We're looking for ways to manage unwanted downloads so he can get the most out of his 4G modem. He also has an iPad and an iPhone 6 connected to the modem's wifi, but we're pretty sure the computer is at fault -- big downloads occurred while he inadvertently left the machine on while on an overnight trip away from his home with both other devices.
Best answer: I also suggested he try running Chrome
Hm. Chrome does anticipatory pre-rendering: if you load a page, it will check the links and pull in content from them so that if/when you click on a link. Of course, if you don't click on a link, you've pulled in content that you don't need, which is problematic on a metered connection. You can disable this in the advanced settings ("Prefetch resources to load pages more quickly") but it's on by default. That said, I wouldn't expect it to pull down a gig from prefetching, and I don't think it uses nsurlsessiond.
More broadly, Little Snitch will provide more granular information on real-time network activity, with a menubar indicator of incoming/outgoing traffic.
posted by holgate at 12:59 PM on May 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hm. Chrome does anticipatory pre-rendering: if you load a page, it will check the links and pull in content from them so that if/when you click on a link. Of course, if you don't click on a link, you've pulled in content that you don't need, which is problematic on a metered connection. You can disable this in the advanced settings ("Prefetch resources to load pages more quickly") but it's on by default. That said, I wouldn't expect it to pull down a gig from prefetching, and I don't think it uses nsurlsessiond.
More broadly, Little Snitch will provide more granular information on real-time network activity, with a menubar indicator of incoming/outgoing traffic.
posted by holgate at 12:59 PM on May 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I use iStat Menus, which displays, among other things, a network activity monitor in my menubar. If you see it spike, you can generally click to see what application is responsible.
posted by zachlipton at 1:04 PM on May 2, 2015
posted by zachlipton at 1:04 PM on May 2, 2015
Best answer: Under System Preferences > App Store, make sure "Download newly available updates in background" is unchecked. The three "Install..." options should be unchecked, as well.
Turn. Off. iCloud.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:29 PM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Turn. Off. iCloud.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:29 PM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I came in here to suggest using Little Snitch to restrict outgoing connections very granularly.
posted by tapir-whorf at 2:35 PM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by tapir-whorf at 2:35 PM on May 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Good answers, everyone -- thank you! He's resistant to spending $35 on Little Snitch, but I told him it may be worth it in terms of peace-of-mind. I may just buy it for him, heh.
posted by Alterscape at 8:49 PM on May 2, 2015
posted by Alterscape at 8:49 PM on May 2, 2015
Make sure to check that the iPhone and iPad aren't set to automatically backup and update when plugged in, locked, and connected to Wifi. I have a hotspot too and was eating data like crazy. I finally realized that when I plugged in my phone and iPad each night to charge while I slept they were automatically backing up EVERYTHING (hey lots of photos!) and eating my data. Now I do it manually when I'm on a friends wifi.
posted by MultiFaceted at 11:12 PM on May 2, 2015
posted by MultiFaceted at 11:12 PM on May 2, 2015
I just saw this Lifehacker article on the TripMode app, which provides you with a menu bar widget to manage which apps can use bandwidth.
No experience with it, but I thought of this question when I saw it.
posted by misterbrandt at 1:41 PM on May 6, 2015
No experience with it, but I thought of this question when I saw it.
posted by misterbrandt at 1:41 PM on May 6, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
I'd just do the routine checks on those things also, there may be some weird way they are interacting with the desktop machine/internet if they're doing wireless sync stuff. I feel like turning off iCloud is going to nail this (I can't think of anything else that would do updates approaching that magnitude), but if not.
So you've got the app store sorted. How about things like
- Adobe Flash and any other software with an updater that doesn't go through the app store
- Other browsers which may be downloading updates even if they're not the one's he's using (and all the related add-ons for example. Firefox can check that.)
- Antivirus stuff that would download update packages
- Itunes - any checking stuff it does (genius, covers, etc)
I haven't used the new Photos app but if he has that make sure it's not adding locations to some idiot online map or otherwise tying to sync to some cloud thing. Otherwise I'd dive into the forums, the people there are pretty helpful and might be able to help you untangle this or think of things you haven't before. There's some good info in this thread for example including a script that will kill nsurlsessiond until the next reboot.
posted by jessamyn at 12:57 PM on May 2, 2015