The Racoon Process

One thing I like about running Little Snitch is that I learn more than I ever really wanted to know about all of the little OS processes that run in the background. Last night Little Snitch asked if I should let a process called "Racoon" connect to a remote address.

It's not a good idea to deny the Racoon if you want to use any kind of VPN.1

Also, here's a very good site that lists all known Mac processes.

  1. "Um, turns out..." this is used by several Mac services, including Back to My Mac. I also think it's used by iTunes in some way. When I block racoon with Little Snitch, iTunes will never finish looking for updates. ↩