Services API

Just like the 3DS/N3DS, the Switch exposes an API which communicates with certain services. Services are system processes running in the background which wait for incoming requests. When a process wants to communicate with a service, it first needs to get a handle to the named service, and then it can communicate with the service via inter-process communication (each service has a name up to 8 characters).

Handles for services are retrieved from the service manager port, "sm:". Services are an abstraction of ports, they operate the same way except regular ports can have their handles retrieved directly from a SVC.

List of services (non-exhaustive):

Service names	Description	Notes
nvmemp	NVIDIA Memory Profiling service
nvdrv:a	NVIDIA Graphics Driver service
acc:u1	Account System service	u1: for user 1?
appletAE	Applet Accessor service
audren:u	Audio Renderer service
audout:u	Audio Out service
caps:a, caps:ss	Capture service	a: Album, ss: Screenshot
nim:shp	NIM service	shp: eShop
fatal:u	Fatal service
fsp-srv	File System Proxy service
hid, hid:dbg, hid:sys	HID service
ldn:m	Local Network Monitor service
lm	Log service
nifm:u, nifm:a, nifm:s	Network Interface service	u: User?, a: Application?, s: Static?
ns:am	NS service	am: Application Manager
nsd:u, nsd:a	NSD service
pl:u	Shared Font Manager service
prepo:u, prepo:s, prepo:m, prepo:a	Prepo(?) service
set, set:sys	Settings service	sys: System settings
bsd:u, bsd:s	Sockets service
sfdnsres	DNS resolver service
ssl	SSL service
time:u, time:a, time:s	Time service
vi:m, vi:s, vi:u	VI (Camera?) service
erpt:c	ERPT(?) service
ldr:ro	RO service
mm:u	NvMM service