Resque Lock Timeout

A Resque plugin. Requires Resque >= v1.8.0.

resque-lock-timeout adds locking, with optional timeout/deadlock handling to resque jobs.

Using a lock_timeout allows you to re-aquire the lock should your worker fail, crash, or is otherwise unable to relase the lock. i.e. Your server unexpectedly looses power. Very handy for jobs that are recurring or may be retried.

Usage / Examples

Single Job Instance

require 'resque-lock-timeout'

class UpdateNetworkGraph
  extend Resque::Plugins::LockTimeout
  @queue = :network_graph

  def self.perform(repo_id)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

Locking is achieved by storing a identifyer/lock key in Redis.

Default behaviour...

  • Only one instance of a job may execute at once.
  • The lock is held until the job completes or fails.
  • If another job is executing with the same arguments the job will abort.

Please see below for more information about the identifer/lock key.

With Lock Expiry/Timeout

The locking algorithm used can be found in the Redis SETNX documentation.

Simply set the lock timeout in seconds, e.g.

class UpdateNetworkGraph
  extend Resque::Plugins::LockTimeout
  @queue = :network_graph

  # Lock may be held for upto an hour.
  @lock_timeout = 3600

  def self.perform(repo_id)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

Customise & Extend

Job Identifier/Lock Key

By default the key uses this format: lock:<job class name>:<identifier>.

The default identifier is just your job arguments joined with a dash -.

If you have a lot of arguments or really long ones, you should consider overriding identifier to define a more precise or loose custom identifier:

class UpdateNetworkGraph
  extend Resque::Plugins::LockTimeout
  @queue = :network_graph

  # Run only one at a time, regardless of repo_id.
  def self.identifier(repo_id)
    nil
  end

  def self.perform(repo_id)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

The above modification will ensure only one job of class UpdateNetworkGraph is running at a time, regardless of the repo_id.

Its lock key would be: lock:UpdateNetworkGraph (the :<identifier> part is left out if the identifier is nil).

You can define the entire key by overriding redis_lock_key:

class UpdateNetworkGraph
  extend Resque::Plugins::LockTimeout
  @queue = :network_graph

  def self.redis_lock_key(repo_id)
    "lock:updates"
  end

  def self.perform(repo_id)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

That would use the key lock:updates.

Redis Connection Used for Locking

By default all locks are stored via Resque's redis connection. If you wish to change this you may override lock_redis.

class UpdateNetworkGraph
  extend Resque::Plugins::LockTimeout
  @queue = :network_graph

  def self.lock_redis
    @lock_redis ||= Redis.new
  end

  def self.perform(repo_id)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

Setting Timeout At Runtime

You may define the lock_timeout method to adjust the timeout at runtime using job arguments. e.g.

class UpdateNetworkGraph
  extend Resque::Plugins::LockTimeout
  @queue = :network_graph

  def self.lock_timeout(repo_id, timeout_minutes)
    60 * timeout_minutes
  end

  def self.perform(repo_id, timeout_minutes = 1)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

Helper Methods

  • locked? - checks if the lock is currently held.
  • refresh_lock! - Refresh the lock, useful for jobs that are taking longer then usual but your okay with them holding on to the lock a little longer.

Callbacks

Several callbacks are available to override and implement your own logic, e.g.

class UpdateNetworkGraph
  extend Resque::Plugins::Lock
  @queue = :network_graph

  # Lock may be held for upto an hour.
  @lock_timeout = 3600

  # Job failed to acquire lock. You may implement retry or other logic.
  def self.lock_failed(repo_id)
    raise LockFailed
  end

  # Job has complete; but the lock expired before we could relase it.
  # The lock wasn't released; as its *possible* the lock is now held
  # by another job.
  def self.lock_expired_before_release(repo_id)
    handle_if_needed
  end

  def self.perform(repo_id)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

Install

$ gem install resque-lock-timeout

Acknowledgements

Forked from Chris Wanstrath' resque-lock plugin. Lock timeout from Ryan Carvar' resque-lock-retry plugin. And a little tinkering from Luke Antins.