What are "nsurlsessiond" and "AssetCacheLocatorService"?

nsurlsessiond

Let me add something new to this discussion. I do not use Apple's iCloud. I believe in backing up my systems with good old fashioned (large & newest technological advanced) external hard drive devices. I just recently had to scour Google again looking for a new domain this little bugger was trying to connect to. It turned out to be a an Apple owned DNS, but in any case I have no idea what it was trying to connect to and/or what it was doing. You can't find that information anywhere. If Apple ends up making iCloud such an integral part of the Apple OS in which case you can't use the operating system without enabling and using iCloud, I will stop using Apple products and go back to buying PC's and just installing UNIX or a UNIX-Like OS (like OS X used to be and still is, or Linux). I really hope this doesn't happen. I used to work in the tech industry. I was paid to do some "pentesting" as a part of this job. Even though I LOVE my MacBook Pro, the more connections made doesn't create "a more the merrier" kind of situation. Advanced persistent threats thrive on these types of systems when there multiple open ports to allow for many different kinds of data to come and go, i.e Windows & Windows servers.

P.S - I read something about Akamai ... well Akamai provides upwards of 30% of ALL internet/web traffic. They are one of the BIGGEST cloud platforms in the world today. And yes Apple uses them for SEVERAL different things. I think their only real competitor is EMC² when it comes to cloud computing and basic overall data warehousing.

Enjoy.

I hope this might shed some light or answer maybe 1 question to the many people who may stumble upon this thread.

Well -- this built-in system process -- nsurlsessiond

is just eating up bandwidth on my internet access from my home desktop iMac. It is downloading Gb of material that I have no idea where it is going or what the content might be. I shut off photos iCloud synching and some other spotlight options but the downloading continues. I believe this all started when I set up iCloud disk the first time or it might have coincided with installation of Sierra. Whatever -- it is causing me disconnect the affected computer from the internet entirely. My office PowerMac and my MacBook Pro, also running Sierra, have no such problems -- so far.

So maybe Apple needs to suggest some fixes for this issue. A lot of people have complained about it for several years now!

Those are built-in system processes. "Little Snitch" is doing its job of wasting your time with utterly pointless alerts and interfering with the normal operation of your computer.

What are those names? Apple does have a very big iAd delivery network. Perhaps Little Snitch knows what it is doing after all. 🙂

Akamai is used by many companies, including Apple.

Have a nice day.

They are not apple beacause the reverse ns lookup points to my internt provider

For me, nsurlsessionid only seems to connect to " *.swcdn.apple.com", and I allow this.

I totally agree with you. I've been able to use Little Snitch to almost completely eliminate advertising when browsing the web and also cookie tracking.

Far from 'utterly pointless'...

Hello Michael,

Check your iCloud settings. One of the new features is Desktop and Documents in the cloud. There is no warning dialog that says "are you sure you want to upload 129 GB?"