sudo kill -9 pid doesn't kill softwareupdated in mac

I have a process softwareupdated which is consuming lot of data. I just want to close the process as I dont want to update . I tried sudo kill -9 pid but it doesn't kill softwareupdated in mac. I keep getting Operation not permitted when I try to kill process.

2 Answers

It appears that some processes managed by launchd cannot be killed via normal means. For example, softwareupdated does not permit sudo kill -9 from the root user or the _softwareupdate user. One workaround is to get launchd to send the signal for you:

$ sudo su -
$ launchctl list | grep -i softwareupdated ;# Find PID and full service-name
$ launchctl kill 9 system/com.apple.softwareupdated

Another variant of this last command might require less guessing to construct:

$ launchctl kill 9 pid/<pid>/com.apple.softwareupdated

Rather than trying to kill a protected system process, why not just switch off automatic updates?

System Prefs > Software Update > Advanced…

Switch off the ones you don't want to happen automatically. Note it is wise to allow it to check, even if you don't let it download or install. That way you will get a reminder & you can choose when to let it run.

Pic from Mojave. Big Sur may be visually different, but functionally similar.