resque-retry

A Resque plugin. Requires Resque 1.8.0 & resque-scheduler.

resque-retry provides retry, delay and exponential backoff support for resque jobs.

  • Redis backed retry count/limit.
  • Retry on all or specific exceptions.
  • Exponential backoff (varying the delay between retrys).
  • Multiple failure backend with retry suppression & resque-web tab.
  • Small & Extendable - plenty of places to override retry logic/settings.

Install & Quick Start

To install:

$ gem install resque-retry

Add this to your Rakefile:

require 'resque/tasks'
require 'resque_scheduler/tasks'

The delay between retry attempts is provided by resque-scheduler. You'll want to run the scheduler process, otherwise delayed retry attempts will never perform:

$ rake resque:scheduler

Use the plugin:

require 'resque-retry'

class ExampleRetryJob
  extend Resque::Plugins::Retry
  @queue = :example_queue

  @retry_limit = 3
  @retry_delay = 60

  def self.perform(*args)
    # your magic/heavy lifting goes here.
  end
end

Then start up a resque worker as normal:

$ QUEUE=* rake resque:work

Now if you ExampleRetryJob fails, it will be retried 3 times, with a 60 second delay between attempts.

For more explanation and examples, please see the remaining documentation.

Failure Backend & Resque Web Additions

Lets say your using the Redis failure backend of resque (the default). Every time a job fails, the failure queue is populated with the job and exception details.

Normally this is useful, but if your jobs retry... it can cause a bit of a mess.

For example: given a job that retried 4 times before completing successful. You'll have a lot of failures for the same job and you wont be sure if it actually completed successfully just by just using the resque-web interface.

Failure Backend

MultipleWithRetrySuppression is a multiple failure backend, with retry suppression.

Here's an example, using the Redis failure backend:

require 'resque-retry'
require 'resque/failure/redis'

# require your jobs & application code.

Resque::Failure::MultipleWithRetrySuppression.classes = [Resque::Failure::Redis]
Resque::Failure.backend = Resque::Failure::MultipleWithRetrySuppression

If a job fails, but can and will retry, the failure details wont be logged in the Redis failed queue (visible via resque-web).

If the job fails, but can't or won't retry, the failure will be logged in the Redis failed queue, like a normal failure (without retry) would.

Resque Web Additions

If your using the MultipleWithRetrySuppression failure backend, you should also checkout the resque-web additions!

The new Retry tab displays delayed jobs with retry information; the number of attempts and the exception details from the last failure.

Make sure you include this in your config.ru or similar file:

require 'resque-retry'
require 'resque-retry/server'

# require your jobs & application code.

run Resque::Server.new

Retry Options & Logic

Please take a look at the yardoc/code for more details on methods you may wish to override.

Customisation is pretty easy, the below examples should give you some ideas =), adapt for your own usage and feel free to pick and mix!

Retry Defaults

Retry the job once on failure, with zero delay.

require 'resque-retry'

class DeliverWebHook
  extend Resque::Plugins::Retry
  @queue = :web_hooks

  def self.perform(url, hook_id, hmac_key)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

When a job runs, the number of retry attempts is checked and incremented in Redis. If your job fails, the number of retry attempts is used to determine if we can requeue the job for another go.

Custom Retry

class DeliverWebHook
  extend Resque::Plugins::Retry
  @queue = :web_hooks

  @retry_limit = 10
  @retry_delay = 120

  def self.perform(url, hook_id, hmac_key)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

The above modification will allow your job to retry upto 10 times, with a delay of 120 seconds, or 2 minutes between retry attempts.

Alternatively you could override the retry_delay method to do something more special.

Exponential Backoff

Use this if you wish to vary the delay between retry attempts:

class DeliverSMS
  extend Resque::Plugins::ExponentialBackoff
  @queue = :mt_messages

  def self.perform(mt_id, mobile_number, message)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

Default Settings

key: m = minutes, h = hours

              no delay, 1m, 10m,   1h,    3h,    6h
@backoff_strategy = [0, 60, 600, 3600, 10800, 21600]

The first delay will be 0 seconds, the 2nd will be 60 seconds, etc... Again, tweak to your own needs.

The number if retrys is equal to the size of the backoff_strategy array, unless you set retry_limit yourself.

Retry Specific Exceptions

The default will allow a retry for any type of exception. You may change it so only specific exceptions are retried using retry_exceptions:

class DeliverSMS
  extend Resque::Plugins::Retry
  @queue = :mt_messages

  @retry_exceptions = [NetworkError]

  def self.perform(mt_id, mobile_number, message)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

The above modification will only retry if a NetworkError (or subclass) exception is thrown.

Custom Retry Criteria Check Callbacks

You may define custom retry criteria callbacks:

class TurkWorker
  extend Resque::Plugins::Retry
  @queue = :turk_job_processor

  @retry_exceptions = [NetworkError]

  retry_criteria_check do |exception, *args|
    if exception.message =~ /InvalidJobId/
      false # don't retry if we got passed a invalid job id.
    else
      true  # its okay for a retry attempt to continue.
    end
  end

  def self.perform(job_id)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

Similar to the previous example, this job will retry if either a NetworkError (or subclass) exception is thrown or any of the callbacks return true.

Use @retry_exceptions = [] to only use callbacks, to determine if the job should retry.

Retry Arguments

You may override args_for_retry, which is passed the current job arguments, to modify the arguments for the next retry attempt.

class DeliverViaSMSC
  extend Resque::Plugins::Retry
  @queue = :mt_smsc_messages

  # retry using the emergency SMSC.
  def self.args_for_retry(smsc_id, mt_message)
    [999, mt_message]
  end

  self.perform(smsc_id, mt_message)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

Job Identifier/Key

The retry attempt is incremented and stored in a Redis key. The key is built using the identifier. 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.

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

By default the key uses this format: resque-retry:<job class name>:<identifier>.

Or you can define the entire key by overriding redis_retry_key.

class DeliverSMS
  extend Resque::Plugins::Retry
  @queue = :mt_messages

  def self.identifier(mt_id, mobile_number, message)
    "#{mobile_number}:#{mt_id}"
  end

  self.perform(mt_id, mobile_number, message)
    heavy_lifting
  end
end

Contributing/Pull Requests

  • Yes please!
  • Fork the project.
  • Make your feature addition or bug fix.
  • Add tests for it.
  • Commit.
  • Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.
  • If you edit the gemspec/version etc, do it in another commit please.