What is a scheduler service ?

Scheduler service provides the ability to execute tasks at specific times or intervals.

How to write Node.js scheduler service ?

You can write a scheduler service mostly in any modern frameworks such as .net core, elixir, node.js, go language etc.

In this example i use node.js. To follow this example you need to have basic knowledge about javascript.

Take the following steps to create basic scheduler service:

1 - Create project folder for your service

mkdir scheduler-service && cd scheduler-service

2 - init npm

npm init -y

3 - install the following packages:

• node-schedule
• log4js

i chose node-schedule package for cron-like scheduler functionalitiy and log4js for logging.

4 - Create a javascript file

• ex: schedule.js

5 - Import node-schedule library and assign a job to scheduleJob function

-

const schedule = require("node-schedule");

const job = schedule.scheduleJob("*/1 * * * *", function () {
  console.log("every minute you will see this log");
});

as you can see in the example above scheduleJob has 2 parameters:

1 - cron expression

• Cron expressions are used for initialize a repetitive time for a job. It is a string consisting of six or seven subexpressions (fields) that describe individual details of the schedule.

┬    ┬    ┬    ┬    ┬    ┬
│    │    │    │    │    │
│    │    │    │    │    └ day of week (0 - 7) (0 or 7 is Sun)
│    │    │    │    └───── month (1 - 12)
│    │    │    └────────── day of month (1 - 31)
│    │    └─────────────── hour (0 - 23)
│    └──────────────────── minute (0 - 59)
└───────────────────────── second (0 - 59)

2 - a function

• this function defines a task that we want to schedule

Complete js code that uses log4js to log:

const log4js = require("log4js");
log4js.configure({
  appenders: { log: { type: "file", filename: "schedule.log" } },
  categories: { default: { appenders: ["log"], level: "info" } },
});

const logger = log4js.getLogger("log");

logger.info("scheduler started.");
const job = schedule.scheduleJob("*/1 * * * *", function () {
  logger.warn("every minute you will see this log");
});

How to write systemd service file?

To register our service to linux service we need to create a systemd service file.

Take the following steps to create systemd service file:

1 - type following command to linux terminal

• vi /etc/systemd/system/schedule.service

2 - put the following content in it

[Unit]
Description=node service

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/home/emin/node/
User=ubuntu
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /home/ubuntu/hello_env.js
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10

3 - sudo systemctl daemon-reload

• You have to do this whenever any of the service files change at all so that system picks up the new info.

4 - sudo systemctl start schedule

5 - sudo systemctl status schedule

• this command shows the status of a service.

After starting your service you should see a schedule.log file in location of the service.

Resources:

• run-a-node-js-app-as-a-background-service
• node-schedule
• practical-implementation-net-core-background-services
• node-js-app-with-systemd