A cron job for rails best practices

Question

What s the best way to run scheduled tasks in a Rails environment  Script runner  Rake  I would like to run the task every few minutes

User · Answer

Assuming your tasks don t take too long to complete  just create a new controller with an action for each task  Implement the logic of the task as controller code  Then set up a cronjob at the OS level that uses wget to invoke the URL of this controller and action at the appropriate time intervals  The advantages of this method are you    Have full access to all your Rails objects just as in a normal controller  Can develop and test just as you do normal actions   Can also invoke your tasks adhoc from a simple web page  Don t consume any more memory by firing up additional ruby rails processes

User · Answer

I use backgroundrb   http   backgroundrb rubyforge org   I use it to run scheduled tasks as well as tasks that take too long for the normal client server relationship

User · Answer

script runner and rake tasks are perfectly fine to run as cron jobs   Here s one very important thing you must remember when running cron jobs  They probably won t be called from the root directory of your app  This means all your requires for files  as opposed to libraries  should be done with the explicit path  e g  File dirname   FILE        other file   This also means you have to know how to explicitly call them from another directory  -   Check if your code supports being run from another directory with     from    path to ruby  path to app script runner -e development  MyClass class method   path to ruby  path to rake -f  path to app Rakefile rake task RAILS ENV development   Also  cron jobs probably don t run as you  so don t depend on any shortcut you put in  bashrc  But that s just a standard cron tip  -

User · Answer

Both will work fine  I usually use script runner    Here s an example   0  6           cd  var www apps your app current    script runner --environment production  EmailSubscription send email subscriptions   gt  gt   var www apps your app shared log send email subscriptions log  2 gt  amp 1  You can also write a pure-Ruby script to do this if you load the right config files to connect to your database   One thing to keep in mind if memory is precious is that script runner  or a Rake task that depends on  environment   will load the entire Rails environment  If you only need to insert some records into the database  this will use memory you don t really have to  If you write your own script  you can avoid this  I haven t actually needed to do this yet  but I am considering it

User · Answer

I m not really sure  I guess it depends on the task  how often to run  how much complicated and how much direct communication with the rails project is needed etc  I guess if there was just  One Best Way  to do something  there wouldn t be so many different ways to do it   At my last job in a Rails project  we needed to make a batch invitation mailer  survey invitations  not spamming  which should send the planned mails whenever the server had time  I think we were going to use daemon tools to run the rake tasks I had created    Unfortunately  our company had some money problems and was  bought  by the main rival so the project was never completed  so I don t know what we would eventually have used

User · Answer

I m not really sure  I guess it depends on the task  how often to run  how much complicated and how much direct communication with the rails project is needed etc  I guess if there was just  One Best Way  to do something  there wouldn t be so many different ways to do it   At my last job in a Rails project  we needed to make a batch invitation mailer  survey invitations  not spamming  which should send the planned mails whenever the server had time  I think we were going to use daemon tools to run the rake tasks I had created    Unfortunately  our company had some money problems and was  bought  by the main rival so the project was never completed  so I don t know what we would eventually have used

User · Answer

I ve used the extremely popular Whenever on projects that rely heavily on scheduled tasks  and it s great   It gives you a nice DSL to define your scheduled tasks instead of having to deal with crontab format   From the README      Whenever is a Ruby gem that provides a   clear syntax for writing and deploying   cron jobs    Example from the README   every 3 hours do   runner  MyModel some process           rake  my rake task                     command   usr bin my great command  end  every 1 day   at   gt   4 30 am  do    runner  MyModel task to run at four thirty in the morning  end

User · Answer

I use backgroundrb   http   backgroundrb rubyforge org   I use it to run scheduled tasks as well as tasks that take too long for the normal client server relationship

User · Answer

Both will work fine  I usually use script runner    Here s an example   0  6           cd  var www apps your app current    script runner --environment production  EmailSubscription send email subscriptions   gt  gt   var www apps your app shared log send email subscriptions log  2 gt  amp 1  You can also write a pure-Ruby script to do this if you load the right config files to connect to your database   One thing to keep in mind if memory is precious is that script runner  or a Rake task that depends on  environment   will load the entire Rails environment  If you only need to insert some records into the database  this will use memory you don t really have to  If you write your own script  you can avoid this  I haven t actually needed to do this yet  but I am considering it

User · Answer

I use backgroundrb   http   backgroundrb rubyforge org   I use it to run scheduled tasks as well as tasks that take too long for the normal client server relationship

User · Answer

Probably the best way to do it is using rake to write the tasks you need and the just execute it via command line   You can see a very helpful video at railscasts  Also take a look at this other resources    Rails Rake Tutorial

User · Answer

Use Craken  rake centric cron jobs

User · Answer

I Use script to run cron  that is the best way to run a cron  Here is some example for cron   Open CronTab      sudo crontab -e  And Paste Bellow lines   00 00         wget https   your host some API end point  Here is some cron format  will help you    CRON FORMAT       Examples Of crontab Entries 15 6 2 1    home melissa backup sh Run the shell script  home melissa backup sh on January 2 at 6 15 A M   15 06 02 Jan    home melissa backup sh Same as the above entry  Zeroes can be added at the beginning of a number for legibility  without changing their value   0 9-18        home carl hourly-archive sh Run  home carl hourly-archive sh every hour  on the hour  from 9 A M  through 6 P M   every day   0 9 18     Mon  home wendy script sh Run  home wendy script sh every Monday  at 9 A M  and 6 P M   30 22     Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri  usr local bin backup Run  usr local bin backup at 10 30 P M   every weekday     Hope this will help you

User · Answer

Here s how I have setup my cron tasks  I have one to make daily backups of SQL database  using rake  and another to expire cache once a month  Any output is logged in a file log cron log  My crontab looks like this   crontab -l   command to print all cron tasks crontab -e   command to edit add cron tasks    Contents of crontab 0 1       cd  home lenart izziv  whiskas si current   bin sh cron tasks  gt  gt  log cron log 2 gt  amp 1 0 0 1     cd  home lenart izziv whiskas si current   usr bin env  usr local bin ruby script runner -e production lib monthly cron rb  gt  gt  log cron log 2 gt  amp 1   The first cron task makes daily db backups  The contents of cron tasks are the following    usr local bin rake db backup RAILS ENV production  date  echo  END OF OUTPUT ----     The second task was setup later and uses script runner to expire cache once a month  lib monthly cron rb       usr local bin ruby   Expire challenge cache Challenge force expire cache puts  Expired cache for Challenges  Challenge force expire cache    Time now     I guess I could backup database some other way but so far it works for me     The paths to rake and ruby can vary on different servers  You can see where they are by using   whereis ruby   - gt  ruby   usr local bin ruby whereis rake   - gt  rake   usr local bin rake

User · Answer

I have recently created some cron jobs for the projects I have been working on   I found that the gem Clockwork very useful   require  clockwork   module Clockwork   every 10 seconds   frequent job   end   You can even schedule your background job using this gem  For documentation and further help refer https   github com Rykian clockwork

User · Answer

I m using the rake approach  as supported by heroku   With a file called lib tasks cron rake     task  cron   gt   environment do   puts  Pulling new requests       EdiListener process new messages   puts  done   end   To execute from the command line  this is just  rake cron   This command can then be put on the operating system cron task scheduler as desired   Update this is quite an old question and answer  Some new info    the heroku cron service I referenced has since been replaced by Heroku Scheduler for frequent tasks  esp  where you want to avoid the Rails environment startup cost  my preferred approach is to use system cron to call a script that will either  a  poke a secure private webhook API to invoke the required task in the background or  b  directly enqueue a task on your queuing system of choice

User · Answer

Once I had to make the same decision and I m really happy with that decision today  Use resque scheduler because not only a seperate redis will take out the load from your db  you will also have access to many plugins like resque-web which provides a great user interface  As your system develops you will have more and more tasks to schedule so you will be able to control them from a single place

User · Answer

Assuming your tasks don t take too long to complete  just create a new controller with an action for each task  Implement the logic of the task as controller code  Then set up a cronjob at the OS level that uses wget to invoke the URL of this controller and action at the appropriate time intervals  The advantages of this method are you    Have full access to all your Rails objects just as in a normal controller  Can develop and test just as you do normal actions   Can also invoke your tasks adhoc from a simple web page  Don t consume any more memory by firing up additional ruby rails processes

User · Answer

The problem with whenever  and cron  is that it reloads the rails environment every time it s executed  which is a real problem when your tasks are frequent or have a lot of initialization work to do  I have had issues in production because of this and must warn you   Rufus scheduler does it for me   https   github com jmettraux rufus-scheduler    When I have long jobs to run  I use it with delayed job   https   github com collectiveidea delayed job    I hope this helps

User · Answer

I m using the rake approach  as supported by heroku   With a file called lib tasks cron rake     task  cron   gt   environment do   puts  Pulling new requests       EdiListener process new messages   puts  done   end   To execute from the command line  this is just  rake cron   This command can then be put on the operating system cron task scheduler as desired   Update this is quite an old question and answer  Some new info    the heroku cron service I referenced has since been replaced by Heroku Scheduler for frequent tasks  esp  where you want to avoid the Rails environment startup cost  my preferred approach is to use system cron to call a script that will either  a  poke a secure private webhook API to invoke the required task in the background or  b  directly enqueue a task on your queuing system of choice

User · Answer

I used clockwork gem and it works pretty well for me  There is also clockworkd gem that allows a script to run as a daemon

User · Answer

I m a big fan of resque resque scheduler  You can not only run repeating cron-like tasks but also tasks at specific times  The downside is  it requires a Redis server

User · Answer

That is interesting no one mentioned the Sidetiq  It is nice addition if you already using Sidekiq      Sidetiq provides a simple API for defining recurring workers for   Sidekiq    Job will look like this   class MyWorker   include Sidekiq  Worker   include Sidetiq  Schedulable    recurrence   hourly minute of hour 15  45       def perform       do stuff       end end

User · Answer

Here s how I have setup my cron tasks  I have one to make daily backups of SQL database  using rake  and another to expire cache once a month  Any output is logged in a file log cron log  My crontab looks like this   crontab -l   command to print all cron tasks crontab -e   command to edit add cron tasks    Contents of crontab 0 1       cd  home lenart izziv  whiskas si current   bin sh cron tasks  gt  gt  log cron log 2 gt  amp 1 0 0 1     cd  home lenart izziv whiskas si current   usr bin env  usr local bin ruby script runner -e production lib monthly cron rb  gt  gt  log cron log 2 gt  amp 1   The first cron task makes daily db backups  The contents of cron tasks are the following    usr local bin rake db backup RAILS ENV production  date  echo  END OF OUTPUT ----     The second task was setup later and uses script runner to expire cache once a month  lib monthly cron rb       usr local bin ruby   Expire challenge cache Challenge force expire cache puts  Expired cache for Challenges  Challenge force expire cache    Time now     I guess I could backup database some other way but so far it works for me     The paths to rake and ruby can vary on different servers  You can see where they are by using   whereis ruby   - gt  ruby   usr local bin ruby whereis rake   - gt  rake   usr local bin rake

User · Answer

Both will work fine  I usually use script runner    Here s an example   0  6           cd  var www apps your app current    script runner --environment production  EmailSubscription send email subscriptions   gt  gt   var www apps your app shared log send email subscriptions log  2 gt  amp 1  You can also write a pure-Ruby script to do this if you load the right config files to connect to your database   One thing to keep in mind if memory is precious is that script runner  or a Rake task that depends on  environment   will load the entire Rails environment  If you only need to insert some records into the database  this will use memory you don t really have to  If you write your own script  you can avoid this  I haven t actually needed to do this yet  but I am considering it

User · Answer

I ve used the extremely popular Whenever on projects that rely heavily on scheduled tasks  and it s great   It gives you a nice DSL to define your scheduled tasks instead of having to deal with crontab format   From the README      Whenever is a Ruby gem that provides a   clear syntax for writing and deploying   cron jobs    Example from the README   every 3 hours do   runner  MyModel some process           rake  my rake task                     command   usr bin my great command  end  every 1 day   at   gt   4 30 am  do    runner  MyModel task to run at four thirty in the morning  end

User · Answer

Use Craken  rake centric cron jobs

User · Answer

Assuming your tasks don t take too long to complete  just create a new controller with an action for each task  Implement the logic of the task as controller code  Then set up a cronjob at the OS level that uses wget to invoke the URL of this controller and action at the appropriate time intervals  The advantages of this method are you    Have full access to all your Rails objects just as in a normal controller  Can develop and test just as you do normal actions   Can also invoke your tasks adhoc from a simple web page  Don t consume any more memory by firing up additional ruby rails processes

User · Answer

In our project we first used whenever gem  but confronted some problems   We then switched to RUFUS SCHEDULER gem  which turned out to be very easy and reliable for scheduling tasks in Rails   We have used it for sending weekly  amp  daily mails  and even for running some periodic rake tasks or any method   The code used in this is like       require  rufus-scheduler       scheduler   Rufus  Scheduler new      scheduler in  10d  do         do something in 10 days     end      scheduler at  2030 12 12 23 30 00  do         do something at a given point in time     end      scheduler every  3h  do         do something every 3 hours     end      scheduler cron  5 0        do         do something every day  five minutes after midnight          see  man 5 crontab  in your terminal      end   To learn more  https   github com jmettraux rufus-scheduler

User · Answer

Using something Sidekiq or Resque is a far more robust solution  They both support retrying jobs  exclusivity with a REDIS lock  monitoring  and scheduling   Keep in mind that Resque is a dead project  not actively maintained   so Sidekiq is a way better alternative  It also is more performant  Sidekiq runs several workers on a single  multithread process while Resque runs each worker in a separate process

User · Answer

I use backgroundrb   http   backgroundrb rubyforge org   I use it to run scheduled tasks as well as tasks that take too long for the normal client server relationship

User · Answer

Assuming your tasks don t take too long to complete  just create a new controller with an action for each task  Implement the logic of the task as controller code  Then set up a cronjob at the OS level that uses wget to invoke the URL of this controller and action at the appropriate time intervals  The advantages of this method are you    Have full access to all your Rails objects just as in a normal controller  Can develop and test just as you do normal actions   Can also invoke your tasks adhoc from a simple web page  Don t consume any more memory by firing up additional ruby rails processes

User · Answer

That is interesting no one mentioned the Sidetiq  It is nice addition if you already using Sidekiq      Sidetiq provides a simple API for defining recurring workers for   Sidekiq    Job will look like this   class MyWorker   include Sidekiq  Worker   include Sidetiq  Schedulable    recurrence   hourly minute of hour 15  45       def perform       do stuff       end end

User · Answer

Here s how I have setup my cron tasks  I have one to make daily backups of SQL database  using rake  and another to expire cache once a month  Any output is logged in a file log cron log  My crontab looks like this   crontab -l   command to print all cron tasks crontab -e   command to edit add cron tasks    Contents of crontab 0 1       cd  home lenart izziv  whiskas si current   bin sh cron tasks  gt  gt  log cron log 2 gt  amp 1 0 0 1     cd  home lenart izziv whiskas si current   usr bin env  usr local bin ruby script runner -e production lib monthly cron rb  gt  gt  log cron log 2 gt  amp 1   The first cron task makes daily db backups  The contents of cron tasks are the following    usr local bin rake db backup RAILS ENV production  date  echo  END OF OUTPUT ----     The second task was setup later and uses script runner to expire cache once a month  lib monthly cron rb       usr local bin ruby   Expire challenge cache Challenge force expire cache puts  Expired cache for Challenges  Challenge force expire cache    Time now     I guess I could backup database some other way but so far it works for me     The paths to rake and ruby can vary on different servers  You can see where they are by using   whereis ruby   - gt  ruby   usr local bin ruby whereis rake   - gt  rake   usr local bin rake

User · Answer

Probably the best way to do it is using rake to write the tasks you need and the just execute it via command line   You can see a very helpful video at railscasts  Also take a look at this other resources    Rails Rake Tutorial

User · Answer

In our project we first used whenever gem  but confronted some problems   We then switched to RUFUS SCHEDULER gem  which turned out to be very easy and reliable for scheduling tasks in Rails   We have used it for sending weekly  amp  daily mails  and even for running some periodic rake tasks or any method   The code used in this is like       require  rufus-scheduler       scheduler   Rufus  Scheduler new      scheduler in  10d  do         do something in 10 days     end      scheduler at  2030 12 12 23 30 00  do         do something at a given point in time     end      scheduler every  3h  do         do something every 3 hours     end      scheduler cron  5 0        do         do something every day  five minutes after midnight          see  man 5 crontab  in your terminal      end   To learn more  https   github com jmettraux rufus-scheduler

User · Answer

script runner and rake tasks are perfectly fine to run as cron jobs   Here s one very important thing you must remember when running cron jobs  They probably won t be called from the root directory of your app  This means all your requires for files  as opposed to libraries  should be done with the explicit path  e g  File dirname   FILE        other file   This also means you have to know how to explicitly call them from another directory  -   Check if your code supports being run from another directory with     from    path to ruby  path to app script runner -e development  MyClass class method   path to ruby  path to rake -f  path to app Rakefile rake task RAILS ENV development   Also  cron jobs probably don t run as you  so don t depend on any shortcut you put in  bashrc  But that s just a standard cron tip  -

User · Answer

I m a big fan of resque resque scheduler  You can not only run repeating cron-like tasks but also tasks at specific times  The downside is  it requires a Redis server

User · Answer

I m not really sure  I guess it depends on the task  how often to run  how much complicated and how much direct communication with the rails project is needed etc  I guess if there was just  One Best Way  to do something  there wouldn t be so many different ways to do it   At my last job in a Rails project  we needed to make a batch invitation mailer  survey invitations  not spamming  which should send the planned mails whenever the server had time  I think we were going to use daemon tools to run the rake tasks I had created    Unfortunately  our company had some money problems and was  bought  by the main rival so the project was never completed  so I don t know what we would eventually have used

User · Answer

you can use resque and resque-schedular gem for creating cron  this is very easy to do   https   github com resque resque  https   github com resque resque-scheduler

User · Answer

you can use resque and resque-schedular gem for creating cron  this is very easy to do   https   github com resque resque  https   github com resque resque-scheduler

User · Answer

I m not really sure  I guess it depends on the task  how often to run  how much complicated and how much direct communication with the rails project is needed etc  I guess if there was just  One Best Way  to do something  there wouldn t be so many different ways to do it   At my last job in a Rails project  we needed to make a batch invitation mailer  survey invitations  not spamming  which should send the planned mails whenever the server had time  I think we were going to use daemon tools to run the rake tasks I had created    Unfortunately  our company had some money problems and was  bought  by the main rival so the project was never completed  so I don t know what we would eventually have used

User · Answer

Use Craken  rake centric cron jobs

User · Answer

The problem with whenever  and cron  is that it reloads the rails environment every time it s executed  which is a real problem when your tasks are frequent or have a lot of initialization work to do  I have had issues in production because of this and must warn you   Rufus scheduler does it for me   https   github com jmettraux rufus-scheduler    When I have long jobs to run  I use it with delayed job   https   github com collectiveidea delayed job    I hope this helps

User · Answer

script runner and rake tasks are perfectly fine to run as cron jobs   Here s one very important thing you must remember when running cron jobs  They probably won t be called from the root directory of your app  This means all your requires for files  as opposed to libraries  should be done with the explicit path  e g  File dirname   FILE        other file   This also means you have to know how to explicitly call them from another directory  -   Check if your code supports being run from another directory with     from    path to ruby  path to app script runner -e development  MyClass class method   path to ruby  path to rake -f  path to app Rakefile rake task RAILS ENV development   Also  cron jobs probably don t run as you  so don t depend on any shortcut you put in  bashrc  But that s just a standard cron tip  -

User · Answer

I used clockwork gem and it works pretty well for me  There is also clockworkd gem that allows a script to run as a daemon

User · Answer

I Use script to run cron  that is the best way to run a cron  Here is some example for cron   Open CronTab      sudo crontab -e  And Paste Bellow lines   00 00         wget https   your host some API end point  Here is some cron format  will help you    CRON FORMAT       Examples Of crontab Entries 15 6 2 1    home melissa backup sh Run the shell script  home melissa backup sh on January 2 at 6 15 A M   15 06 02 Jan    home melissa backup sh Same as the above entry  Zeroes can be added at the beginning of a number for legibility  without changing their value   0 9-18        home carl hourly-archive sh Run  home carl hourly-archive sh every hour  on the hour  from 9 A M  through 6 P M   every day   0 9 18     Mon  home wendy script sh Run  home wendy script sh every Monday  at 9 A M  and 6 P M   30 22     Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri  usr local bin backup Run  usr local bin backup at 10 30 P M   every weekday     Hope this will help you

User · Answer

Using something Sidekiq or Resque is a far more robust solution  They both support retrying jobs  exclusivity with a REDIS lock  monitoring  and scheduling   Keep in mind that Resque is a dead project  not actively maintained   so Sidekiq is a way better alternative  It also is more performant  Sidekiq runs several workers on a single  multithread process while Resque runs each worker in a separate process

User · Answer

Once I had to make the same decision and I m really happy with that decision today  Use resque scheduler because not only a seperate redis will take out the load from your db  you will also have access to many plugins like resque-web which provides a great user interface  As your system develops you will have more and more tasks to schedule so you will be able to control them from a single place

User · Answer

script runner and rake tasks are perfectly fine to run as cron jobs   Here s one very important thing you must remember when running cron jobs  They probably won t be called from the root directory of your app  This means all your requires for files  as opposed to libraries  should be done with the explicit path  e g  File dirname   FILE        other file   This also means you have to know how to explicitly call them from another directory  -   Check if your code supports being run from another directory with     from    path to ruby  path to app script runner -e development  MyClass class method   path to ruby  path to rake -f  path to app Rakefile rake task RAILS ENV development   Also  cron jobs probably don t run as you  so don t depend on any shortcut you put in  bashrc  But that s just a standard cron tip  -

User · Answer

Both will work fine  I usually use script runner    Here s an example   0  6           cd  var www apps your app current    script runner --environment production  EmailSubscription send email subscriptions   gt  gt   var www apps your app shared log send email subscriptions log  2 gt  amp 1  You can also write a pure-Ruby script to do this if you load the right config files to connect to your database   One thing to keep in mind if memory is precious is that script runner  or a Rake task that depends on  environment   will load the entire Rails environment  If you only need to insert some records into the database  this will use memory you don t really have to  If you write your own script  you can avoid this  I haven t actually needed to do this yet  but I am considering it

User · Answer

Here s how I have setup my cron tasks  I have one to make daily backups of SQL database  using rake  and another to expire cache once a month  Any output is logged in a file log cron log  My crontab looks like this   crontab -l   command to print all cron tasks crontab -e   command to edit add cron tasks    Contents of crontab 0 1       cd  home lenart izziv  whiskas si current   bin sh cron tasks  gt  gt  log cron log 2 gt  amp 1 0 0 1     cd  home lenart izziv whiskas si current   usr bin env  usr local bin ruby script runner -e production lib monthly cron rb  gt  gt  log cron log 2 gt  amp 1   The first cron task makes daily db backups  The contents of cron tasks are the following    usr local bin rake db backup RAILS ENV production  date  echo  END OF OUTPUT ----     The second task was setup later and uses script runner to expire cache once a month  lib monthly cron rb       usr local bin ruby   Expire challenge cache Challenge force expire cache puts  Expired cache for Challenges  Challenge force expire cache    Time now     I guess I could backup database some other way but so far it works for me     The paths to rake and ruby can vary on different servers  You can see where they are by using   whereis ruby   - gt  ruby   usr local bin ruby whereis rake   - gt  rake   usr local bin rake

User · Answer

Use Craken  rake centric cron jobs

User · Answer

I have recently created some cron jobs for the projects I have been working on   I found that the gem Clockwork very useful   require  clockwork   module Clockwork   every 10 seconds   frequent job   end   You can even schedule your background job using this gem  For documentation and further help refer https   github com Rykian clockwork

[ruby-on-rails] A cron job for rails: best practices?

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