How to Implement Cron Jobs in Rails

In this article will show you how to implement cron jobs in Rails. A cron job is a type of job or task executed at a particular time or interval.

This can be very useful if you want to automate certain tasks like sending emails, backing up databases, etc.

Rails come with a gem named whenever, making it very easy to create and manage cron jobs.

In this article, we’ll see how to create a cron job using the whenever gem.

1. Install the whenever gem

gem install whenever

2. Generate the configuration file

wheneverize .

This will generate a file named config/schedule.rb in your project.

3. Edit the configuration file

Open the config/schedule.rb file and edit it as you need.

Here’s an example:

Every 1.day, at: "5:00 pm" do
  rake "send_reminders"
end

Every 1.day, at: "6:00 pm" do
  rake "cleanup"
end

4. Update the crontab

whenever --update-crontab

This will update the crontab with the jobs you defined in the configuration file.

You can also use the --set enviroment=development option to edit the development crontab or the --set enviroment=production option to update the production crontab.

5. Check the crontab

You can check the current crontab using the crontab -l command.

$ crontab -l
# Begin Whenever generated tasks for: /Users/jorge/Desktop/blog/config/schedule.rb
0 23 * * * /bin/bash -l -c 'cd /Users/jorge/Desktop/blog && script/rails runner -e development '\''send_reminders'\'''
1 23 * * * /bin/bash -l -c 'cd /Users/jorge/Desktop/blog && script/rails runner -e development '\''cleanup'\'''
# End Whenever generated tasks for: /Users/jorge/Desktop/blog/config/schedule.rb

6. Remove the jobs from the crontab

To remove the jobs you defined using the whenever gem; you can use the whenever --clear-crontab command.

This will remove all the jobs from the crontab.

You can also use the --set enviroment=development option to remove the jobs from the development crontab or the --set enviroment=production option to remove the jobs from the production crontab.

Finally, don’t forget to remove the config/schedule.rb file from your project when you are done.

Summary

In this article, you’ve learned how to create rails cron jobs using the whenever gem. You’ve also known how to update, list, and clear the cron jobs.

I hope you enjoyed this article.

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