Our Ruby agent automatically instruments several common background job frameworks. You can also customize it to trace any background tasks. Data from background jobs appears in the Transactions page in APM as Non-web transactions.
Supported frameworks
The following background job frameworks are supported by default in recent versions of the Ruby agent:
- Resque instrumentation (Ruby agent 3.4.0)
- Sidekiq instrumentation (Ruby agent 3.6.0)
- Delayed::Job instrumentation (Ruby agent 2.10)
JRuby users may see issues with CPU metrics.
If you are using these frameworks, monitoring background jobs typically doesn't require additional configuration.
Monitor custom background jobs
You can instrument custom background jobs to appear in the APM Transactions page as Non-web transactions. To monitor Non-web transactions while using an unsupported framework, you must add custom instrumentation.
As an example, a background job periodically runs a task called SalesOrganization#find_new_leads
.
- Add the
ControllerInstrumentation
module. - Use the
add_transaction_tracer
directive below the method definition -
Add
:category => :task
to tell the agent this trace is a Non-web transaction.require 'newrelic_rpm' class SalesOrganization include ::NewRelic::Agent::Instrumentation::ControllerInstrumentation def find_new_leads ... end add_transaction_tracer :find_new_leads, :category => :task end
You can pass a string to the
:category
, but values will only appear on the APM Transactions page if the string begins withOtherTransaction/
.
Monitor custom background methods
Using the Ruby agent API, you can designate specific methods to trace the Non-web transactions. This gathers traces for slow running jobs and associates captured errors to transactions.
To instrument a class method, use the class singleton
.
As an example, a background job periodically runs a task called SalesOrganization#find_new_leads
.
- Add the
ControllerInstrumentation
module below the method definition. - Use the
add_transaction_tracer
directive -
Add
:category => :task
to tell the agent this trace is a Non-web transaction.require 'newrelic_rpm' class SalesOrganization def self.find_new_leads ... end class << self include ::NewRelic::Agent::Instrumentation::ControllerInstrumentation add_transaction_tracer :find_new_leads, :category => :task end end
For more information, see Ruby custom metrics.
Monitor short-lived processes
Make sure the process isn't running before the agent connects to the back-end servers. To do so, make the Ruby agent synchronously connect to New Relic, rather than the default asynchronous behavior.
Use manual_start
and pass in the :sync_startup => true
option:
require 'new_relic/agent' NewRelic::Agent.manual_start(:sync_startup => true)
Using require 'new_relic/agent'
will require the agent's code, and it will make sure the agent doesn't run until you manually start it.
Configure newrelic.yml for background processes
Configuring your newrelic.yml depends on the context of the background application.
- Non-Rails background application
-
If your background app is non-Rails application already running the Ruby agent, copy your newrelic.yml file to the directory where you launch the background job or in the config subdirectory. Make sure it includes your license key.
Background jobs that do not run in a Rails context will examine the
NEW_RELIC_ENV
environment variable to determine which section of the configuration file to read, falling back to theRUBY_ENV
,RAILS_ENV
, andRACK_ENV
environment variables in sequence, and finally defaulting todevelopment
if none of these environment variables are set. - Background job environment monitored by New Relic
-
If your background job runs in the context of an existing web application that is already monitored with New Relic, the Ruby agent will automatically pick up your existing newrelic.yml file. Background jobs that boot your application's Rails environment will use the
RAILS_ENV
environment variable in order to determine which section of the newrelic.yml file to read.
Report to an alternate application name
You can make jobs that run in the context of an existing New Relic web application appear under a different application name in the APM UI.
- Begin before
newrelic_rpm
gets required by your worker code. - Set the
NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME
environment variable to the application name to use for your background jobs when starting your background worker processes. This will override theapp_name
setting in your newrelic.yml.$ NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME="My Background Jobs" ./bin/my_background_worker.rb
Ensure the agent starts
The Ruby agent will automatically start in most cases as soon as you require 'newrelic_rpm'
, unless the agent detects a blacklisted executable name, rake task name, or constant. This prevents it from starting during common rake tasks and interactive console sessions.
- Non-Rails standalone script
-
Standalone scripts running without Rails generally will start the agent as soon as they
require 'newrelic_rpm'
. If you have a script that forks or daemonizes before it begins its main work, you may want to defer thisrequire
call until after the initial setup finishes. - Background tasks with daemons gem
-
If you use the daemons gem to start background tasks, the Ruby agent may fail to start and also not emit any logging. This happens because the daemons gem changes the working directory to
/
before executing your background code. The agent then attempts to resolve the paths to its configuration file and log file relative to the current working directory of the host process.To allow the agent to start in this situation, set environment variables with the locations of the agent configuration file and log file; for example:
ENV['NRCONFIG'] ||= File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../config/newrelic.yml' ENV['NEW_RELIC_LOG'] ||= File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../log/newrelic_agent.log'
For more information, see the documentation about controlling agent startup
Monitor scripts
The agent startup instructions apply when running background jobs in a daemon. If a script executes a single background task and exits, manually shut down the agent with ::NewRelic::Agents.shutdown
when the script finishes. This ensures the New Relic collector receives the data. For example:
require 'newrelic_rpm' class SalesOrganization include ::NewRelic::Agent::Instrumentation::ControllerInstrumentation def find_new_leads ... end add_transaction_tracer :find_new_leads, :category => :task end SalesOrganization.new.find_new_leads ::NewRelic::Agent.shutdown
For more help
Additional documentation resources include:
- Ruby custom metrics (method tracers, metric names, stats, examples
- Ruby agent API (public API methods for the New Relic Ruby agent)