Pueue
Pueue is a command-line task management tool for sequential and parallel execution of long-running tasks.
Simply put, it's a tool that processes a queue of shell commands. On top of that, there are a lot of convenient features and abstractions.
Since Pueue is not bound to any terminal, you can control your tasks from any terminal on the same machine. The queue will be continuously processed, even if you no longer have any active ssh sessions.
- Features
- Why should I use it
- Installation
- How to use it
- Advantages over Using a Terminal Multiplexer
- Similar Projects
Features
- Scheduling
- Add tasks as you go.
- Run multiple tasks at once. You decide how many tasks should run concurrently.
- Change the order of the scheduled tasks.
- Specify dependencies between tasks.
- Schedule tasks to run at a specific time.
- Process interaction
- Easy output inspection.
- Send input to running processes.
- Pause/resume tasks, when you need some processing power right NOW!
- Task groups (multiple queues)
- Each group can have several tasks running in parallel.
- Pause/start tasks by a group.
- Background process execution
- The
pueueddaemon runs in the background. No need to be logged in. - Commands are executed in their respective working directories.
- Environment variables are on
pueue add.
- The
- Consistency
- The queue is always saved to disk and restored on kill/system crash.
- Logs are persisted onto the disk and survive a crash.
- Miscellaneous
- A callback hook to, for instance, set up desktop notifications.
- Convenient methods for scripting
- A lot more. Check the -h options for each subcommand for detailed options.
- Linux is fully supported and battle-tested.
- Windows has all features, but process handling is experimental.
- MacOS only has rudimentary process handling (A few things don't work). It's still usable, though.
Check these issues to find out what's missing for MacOs (#115) and Windows (#114).
Why should I use it
Consider this scenario: You have to unpack large amounts of data into various directories. Usually, something like this ends with 10+ open terminals/tmux sessions and an over-challenged hard drive.
Another scenario might be, that you want to re-encode 10 movies and each re-encode takes 10+ hours.
Creating a chained command with &&s isn't ergonomic at all and running that many re-encodes in parallel will break your CPU.
Pueue is specifically designed for these situations.
You can schedule your task and continue on the same shell without waiting.
You can specify how many tasks should run in parallel and group tasks to maximize system resource utilization.
Since everything is run by a daemon, you can simply log off your server and check on your tasks' progress whenever you want.
Heck, you can even set up desktop notifications to get notified or execute parameterized commands every time a task finishes.
A few possible applications:
- Copying large amounts of data
- Machine learning
- Compression tasks
- Movie encoding
rsynctasks- Anything that takes longer than 5 minutes
Pueue made at least my life a lot easier on many occasions.
If you like the project, feel free to give it at try!
If you feel like something is missing, please create an issue :).
PRs are of course very welcome!
Installation
There are four different ways to install Pueue.
Package Manager
The preferred way to install Pueue is to use your system's package manager.
This will usually deploy service files and completions automatically.
Pueue has been packaged for quite a few distributions, check the table on the right for more information.
Prebuild Binaries
Statically linked (if possible) binaries for Linux (incl. ARM), Mac OS and Windows are built on each release.
You can download the binaries for the client and the daemon (pueue and pueued) for each release on the release page.
Just download both binaries for your system, rename them to pueue and pueued and place them in your $PATH/program folder.
Via Cargo
Pueue is built for the current stable Rust version.
It might compile on older versions, but this isn't tested or officially supported.
This will install Pueue to $CARGO_HOME/bin/pueue (default is ~/.cargo/bin/pueue)
From source
Pueue is built for the current stable Rust version.
It might compile on older versions, but this isn't tested or officially supported.
This will install Pueue to $CARGO_HOME/bin/pueue (default is ~/.cargo/bin/pueue)
How to use it
Check out the wiki to get you started :).
There are also detailed sections for (hopefully) every important feature:
On top of that, there is a help option (-h) for all commands.
Pueue client 0.10.0
Arne Beer <contact@arne.beer>
Interact with the Pueue daemon
USAGE:
pueue [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] <SUBCOMMAND>
FLAGS:
-h, --help Prints help information
-v, --verbose Verbose mode (-v, -vv, -vvv)
-V, --version Prints version information
OPTIONS:
-c, --config <config> Path to a specific pueue config daemon, that should be used. This
ignores all other config files
SUBCOMMANDS:
add Enqueue a task for execution
clean Remove all finished tasks from the list (also clears logs)
completions Generates shell completion files. This can be ignored during normal
operations
edit Edit the command or path of a stashed or queued task.
This edits the command of the task by default.
enqueue Enqueue stashed tasks. They'll be handled normally afterwards
follow Follow the output of a currently running task. This command works like tail
-f
group Manage groups. By default, this will simply display all known groups
help Prints this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
kill Kill specific running tasks or various groups of tasks
log Display the log output of finished tasks. Prints either all logs or only the
logs of specified tasks
parallel Set the amount of allowed parallel tasks
pause Pause either running tasks or specific groups of tasks.
By default, pauses the default queue and all its tasks.
A paused queue (group) won't start any new tasks.
remove Remove tasks from the list. Running or paused tasks need to be killed first
reset Kill all running tasks on user behalf, remove all tasks and reset max_task_id
restart Restart task(s). Identical tasks will be created and by default enqueued. By
default, a new task will be created
send Send something to a task. Useful for sending confirmations such as 'y\n'
shutdown Remotely shut down the daemon. Should only be used if the daemon isn't
started by a service manager
start Resume operation of specific tasks or groups of tasks.
By default, this resumes the default queue and all its tasks.
Can also be used force-start specific tasks.
stash Stashed tasks won't be automatically started. Either enqueue them, to be
normally handled or explicitly start them
status Display the current status of all tasks
switch Switches the queue position of two commands. Only works on queued and stashed
commands
wait Wait until tasks are finished. This can be quite useful for scripting. By
default, this will wait for all tasks in the default queue to finish. Note:
This will also wait for all tasks that aren't somehow 'Done'. Includes:
[Paused, Stashed, Locked, Queued, ...]
Advantages over Using a Terminal Multiplexer
One of the most frequent questions is, why one should use Pueue, when there're terminal multiplexer such as Tmux or Screen.
My response is, that there're simply a lot of missing convenience features.
Here are few examples of Pueue's basic functionality.
- The ability to queue commands and not start them all at once
- Specifying how many tasks should run in parallel
- Easy pausing/resuming of tasks
- Pretty and accessible task status overviews
- No need to attach to multiple tmux sessions
There are a lot more built-in convenience features. You should read the Wiki for a detailed explanation.
Only using your shell's features is definitely possible! However, in my opinion, having a tool that's specifically designed for managing tasks is just more efficient and fun.
One of my regular use cases is downloading lots of stuff. In this case, I want:
- At most three parallel downloads, otherwise the other services on my server get starved.
- To see at first glance whether a download fails and easily edit and re-schedule it.
- An easy way to look at process output.
- Everything to be in a uniform interface.
- It to look pretty and clear.
- To be able to pause/resume everything in case I need to some bandwidth right now.
I used tmux for this stuff all the time before writing Pueue.
However, after using it for a really long time, it just kept feeling annoying and inconvenient.
Up to the point, I couldn't bear it any longer and decided to write something that's better suited for such scenarios.
Similar Projects
nq
A very lightweight job queue systems which require no setup, maintenance, supervision, or any long-running processes.
Link to project
task-spooler
task spooler is a Unix batch system where the tasks spooled run one after the other.
Links to ubuntu manpage and a fork on Github.
The original website seems to be down.
Contributing
Feature requests and pull requests are very much appreciated and welcome!
Anyhow, please talk to me a bit about your ideas before you start hacking! It's always nice to know what you're working on and I might have a few suggestions or tips :)
There's also the Architecture Guide, which is supposed to give you a brief overview and introduction to the project.
Copyright © 2019 Arne Beer (@Nukesor)