=================================================== celery - Distributed Task Queue for Django/Python =================================================== :Version: 0.7.0 Introduction ============ **NOTE:** See the FAQ for information about using celery outside of Django. ``celery`` is a distributed task queue framework for Django/Python. It is used for executing tasks *asynchronously*, routed to one or more worker servers, running concurrently using multiprocessing. It is designed to solve certain problems related to running websites demanding high-availability and performance. It is perfect for filling caches, posting updates to twitter, mass downloading data like syndication feeds or web scraping. Use-cases are plentiful. Implementing these features asynchronously using ``celery`` is easy and fun, and the performance improvements can make it more than worthwhile. Overview ======== This is a high level overview of the architecture. .. image:: http://cloud.github.com/downloads/ask/celery/Celery-Overview-v4.jpg The broker is an AMQP server pushing tasks to the worker servers. A worker server is a networked machine running ``celeryd``. This can be one or more machines, depending on the workload. See `A look inside the worker`_ to see how the worker server works. The result of the task can be stored for later retrieval (called its "tombstone"). Features ======== * Uses AMQP messaging (RabbitMQ, ZeroMQ, Qpid) to route tasks to the worker servers. Experimental support for STOMP (ActiveMQ) is also available. * You can run as many worker servers as you want, and still be *guaranteed that the task is only executed once.* * Tasks are executed *concurrently* using the Python 2.6 ``multiprocessing`` module (also available as a back-port to older python versions) * Supports *periodic tasks*, which makes it a (better) replacement for cronjobs. * When a task has been executed, the return value can be stored using either a MySQL/Oracle/PostgreSQL/SQLite database, Memcached, or Tokyo Tyrant back-end. For high-performance you can also use AMQP to publish results. * If the task raises an exception, the exception instance is stored, instead of the return value. * All tasks has a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID), which is the task id, used for querying task status and return values. * Tasks can be retried if they fail, with a configurable maximum number of retries. * Tasks can be configured to run at a specific time and date in the future (ETA) or you can set a countdown in seconds for when the task should be executed. * Supports *task-sets*, which is a task consisting of several sub-tasks. You can find out how many, or if all of the sub-tasks has been executed. Excellent for progress-bar like functionality. * Has a ``map`` like function that uses tasks, called ``dmap``. * However, you rarely want to wait for these results in a web-environment. You'd rather want to use Ajax to poll the task status, which is available from a URL like ``celery//status/``. This view returns a JSON-serialized data structure containing the task status, and the return value if completed, or exception on failure. * The worker can collect statistics, like, how many tasks has been executed by type, and the time it took to process them. Very useful for monitoring and profiling. * Pool workers are supervised, so if for some reason a worker crashes it is automatically replaced by a new worker. * Can be configured to send e-mails to the administrators when a task fails. API Reference Documentation =========================== The `API Reference`_ is hosted at Github (http://ask.github.com/celery) .. _`API Reference`: http://ask.github.com/celery/ Installation ============= You can install ``celery`` either via the Python Package Index (PyPI) or from source. To install using ``pip``,:: $ pip install celery To install using ``easy_install``,:: $ easy_install celery Downloading and installing from source -------------------------------------- Download the latest version of ``celery`` from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/celery/ You can install it by doing the following,:: $ tar xvfz celery-0.0.0.tar.gz $ cd celery-0.0.0 $ python setup.py build # python setup.py install # as root Using the development version ------------------------------ You can clone the repository by doing the following:: $ git clone git://github.com/ask/celery.git Usage ===== Installing RabbitMQ ------------------- See `Installing RabbitMQ`_ over at RabbitMQ's website. For Mac OS X see `Installing RabbitMQ on OS X`_. .. _`Installing RabbitMQ`: http://www.rabbitmq.com/install.html .. _`Installing RabbitMQ on OS X`: http://playtype.net/past/2008/10/9/installing_rabbitmq_on_osx/ Setting up RabbitMQ ------------------- To use celery we need to create a RabbitMQ user, a virtual host and allow that user access to that virtual host:: $ rabbitmqctl add_user myuser mypassword $ rabbitmqctl add_vhost myvhost From RabbitMQ version 1.6.0 and onward you have to use the new ACL features to allow access:: $ rabbitmqctl set_permissions -p myvhost myuser "" ".*" ".*" See the RabbitMQ `Admin Guide`_ for more information about `access control`_. .. _`Admin Guide`: http://www.rabbitmq.com/admin-guide.html .. _`access control`: http://www.rabbitmq.com/admin-guide.html#access-control If you are still using version 1.5.0 or below, please use ``map_user_vhost``:: $ rabbitmqctl map_user_vhost myuser myvhost Configuring your Django project to use Celery --------------------------------------------- You only need three simple steps to use celery with your Django project. 1. Add ``celery`` to ``INSTALLED_APPS``. 2. Create the celery database tables:: $ python manage.py syncdb 3. Configure celery to use the AMQP user and virtual host we created before, by adding the following to your ``settings.py``:: AMQP_SERVER = "localhost" AMQP_PORT = 5672 AMQP_USER = "myuser" AMQP_PASSWORD = "mypassword" AMQP_VHOST = "myvhost" That's it. There are more options available, like how many processes you want to process work in parallel (the ``CELERY_CONCURRENCY`` setting), and the backend used for storing task statuses. But for now, this should do. For all of the options available, please consult the `API Reference`_ **Note**: If you're using SQLite as the Django database back-end, ``celeryd`` will only be able to process one task at a time, this is because SQLite doesn't allow concurrent writes. Running the celery worker server -------------------------------- To test this we'll be running the worker server in the foreground, so we can see what's going on without consulting the logfile:: $ python manage.py celeryd However, in production you probably want to run the worker in the background, as a daemon:: $ python manage.py celeryd --detach For a complete listing of the command line arguments available, with a short description, you can use the help command:: $ python manage.py help celeryd Defining and executing tasks ---------------------------- **Please note** All of these tasks has to be stored in a real module, they can't be defined in the python shell or ipython/bpython. This is because the celery worker server needs access to the task function to be able to run it. So while it looks like we use the python shell to define the tasks in these examples, you can't do it this way. Put them in the ``tasks`` module of your Django application. The worker server will automatically load any ``tasks.py`` file for all of the applications listed in ``settings.INSTALLED_APPS``. Executing tasks using ``delay`` and ``apply_async`` can be done from the python shell, but keep in mind that since arguments are pickled, you can't use custom classes defined in the shell session. While you can use regular functions, the recommended way is to define a task class. This way you can cleanly upgrade the task to use the more advanced features of celery later. This is a task that basically does nothing but take some arguments, and return a value: >>> from celery.task import Task >>> from celery.registry import tasks >>> class MyTask(Task): ... def run(self, some_arg, **kwargs): ... logger = self.get_logger(**kwargs) ... logger.info("Did something: %s" % some_arg) ... return 42 >>> tasks.register(MyTask) Now if we want to execute this task, we can use the ``delay`` method of the task class (this is a handy shortcut to the ``apply_async`` method which gives you greater control of the task execution). >>> from myapp.tasks import MyTask >>> MyTask.delay(some_arg="foo") At this point, the task has been sent to the message broker. The message broker will hold on to the task until a celery worker server has successfully picked it up. *Note* If everything is just hanging when you execute ``delay``, please check that RabbitMQ is running, and that the user/password has access to the virtual host you configured earlier. Right now we have to check the celery worker logfiles to know what happened with the task. This is because we didn't keep the ``AsyncResult`` object returned by ``delay``. The ``AsyncResult`` lets us find the state of the task, wait for the task to finish and get its return value (or exception if the task failed). So, let's execute the task again, but this time we'll keep track of the task: >>> result = MyTask.delay("do_something", some_arg="foo bar baz") >>> result.ready() # returns True if the task has finished processing. False >>> result.result # task is not ready, so no return value yet. None >>> result.get() # Waits until the task is done and return the retval. 42 >>> result.result 42 >>> result.successful() # returns True if the task didn't end in failure. True If the task raises an exception, the ``result.success()`` will be ``False``, and ``result.result`` will contain the exception instance raised. Auto-discovery of tasks ----------------------- ``celery`` has an auto-discovery feature like the Django Admin, that automatically loads any ``tasks.py`` module in the applications listed in ``settings.INSTALLED_APPS``. This autodiscovery is used by the celery worker to find registered tasks for your Django project. Periodic Tasks --------------- Periodic tasks are tasks that are run every ``n`` seconds. Here's an example of a periodic task: >>> from celery.task import PeriodicTask >>> from celery.registry import tasks >>> from datetime import timedelta >>> class MyPeriodicTask(PeriodicTask): ... run_every = timedelta(seconds=30) ... ... def run(self, **kwargs): ... logger = self.get_logger(**kwargs) ... logger.info("Running periodic task!") ... >>> tasks.register(MyPeriodicTask) **Note:** Periodic tasks does not support arguments, as this doesn't really make sense. A look inside the worker ======================== .. image:: http://cloud.github.com/downloads/ask/celery/InsideTheWorker-v2.jpg Getting Help ============ Mailing list ------------ For discussions about the usage, development, and future of celery, please join the `celery-users`_ mailing list. .. _`celery-users`: http://groups.google.com/group/celery-users/ IRC --- Come chat with us on IRC. The `#celery`_ channel is located at the `Freenode`_ network. .. _`#celery`: irc://irc.freenode.net/celery .. _`Freenode`: http://freenode.net Bug tracker =========== If you have any suggestions, bug reports or annoyances please report them to our issue tracker at http://github.com/ask/celery/issues/ Contributing ============ Development of ``celery`` happens at Github: http://github.com/ask/celery You are highly encouraged to participate in the development of ``celery``. If you don't like Github (for some reason) you're welcome to send regular patches. License ======= This software is licensed under the ``New BSD License``. See the ``LICENSE`` file in the top distribution directory for the full license text. .. # vim: syntax=rst expandtab tabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 shiftround