What *really* is the Mathworks Service Host?

What does the MSH really do, in practice? I already read in the answer here that it "is essential for MATLAB licensing and MATLAB startup", but that does not really explain anything. Please explain what it does from a technical standpoint.

Does it "phone home"? Does it monitor what programs I am running on my computer? Does it preload parts of Matlab?

Answer 1

[Conor Burgess]

MathWorks Service Host is a collection of background processes that provide required services to MATLAB and other MathWorks products. Those services include licensing and MathWorks account login.

• Does it "phone home"?
• It needs to connect to MathWorks webservices to provide services to MATLAB and other MathWorks products.
• Does it monitor what programs I am running on my computer?
• Other than MathWorks programs, no.
• Does it preload parts of Matlab?
• It doesn't directly preload parts of MATLAB, but by moving some of those services out of MATLAB, they can be loaded and ready when MATLAB is started, reducing the work that needs to happen at MATLAB start up.

[f]

Thanks, but what are these "required services" exactly? Prior to version 2024a, Matlab worked seamlessly without MSH; so I find it hard to believe that there are any services at all that need to run in the background, just to ensure that licensing and login work.

[Conor Burgess]

Those services (e.g. licensing and login) have moved out of MATLAB and into MathWorks Service Host. They are no longer fully functional in MATLAB without MathWorks Service Host (as of R2024a).

[f]

I see what you mean, thanks. So it was a conscious choice to move these services from Matlab itself into a background service (even if it was not necessary to do it, from a technical standpoint). What is the technical reason this change was made, if I may ask?

Also, I can figure out what you mean by "Mathworks account login", but what is "licensing" exactly?

[Walter Roberson]

Why does MSH require so very much disk space? I have seen figures on the order of 1 gigabyte per user.