Beanstalkd is a "simple, fast work queue". Originally created for web applications, it's so simple that it can be used on any project that requires async job processing. In my case, it's a must for any web project of medium complexity. Thanks to its simplicity and popularity, the beanstalkd service has been compiled and ported to most OSs, including macOS, and there are client libraries for almost every language.
I've written this guide to install and configure the core beanstalkd service on macOS, as well as a helper monitor utility to simplify my web development workflows. (This guide has only been tested on macOS High Sierra and macOS Catalina.)
Install Beanstalkd
Installation requires Brew, the package manager for macOS. With brew, there's already a published tap/formula for beanstalkd, so you only need to type:
brew install beanstalkd
As a note, macOS is not very friendly to some services. If you think your beanstalkd installation is misbehaving, you can nudge it with:
brew services restart beanstalkd
Beanstalkd monitor and utilities
There are some tools recommended by the official beanstalkd project to monitor and debug the service. For me, the simplest and most straight-forward monitor is the PHP-based beanstalk_console by ptrofimov. Also, since this is a PHP project, we can install it locally in macOS and run it with the built-in PHP standalone server.
To locally install the project, you will need Composer, a PHP dependency manager (you can quickly check if it's installed by running composer --version on the Terminal). If you don't already have Composer, installation is as simple as typing:
brew install composer
Once Composer is installed, this one-liner will install and configure the beanstalk_console monitor (replace path/to/install to your desired install location):
composer create-project ptrofimov/beanstalk_console -s dev path/to/install
We'll also create a helper run.sh script inside the path/to/install directory. This script prepares your dev environment by restarting Beanstalkd, launching a local PHP server with the monitor, and finally opening a new tab on Chrome pointing to it (127.0.0.1:8005).
#!/bin/bash
# CD into the script's actual directory
DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" >/dev/null && pwd )"
cd ${DIR}
# Restart the core Beanstalkd service
brew services restart beanstalkd
# Launch a new Chrome window pointing to the console
open -a "Google Chrome" "http://127.0.0.1:8005"
# Start the local PHP server with the beanstalk_console
php -S 127.0.0.1:8005 -t public
Don't forget to make it executable:
chmod +x run.sh
After running the script, you Terminal should display:
$> ./run.sh
PHP 7.1.23 Development Server started at Tue Sep 24 18:12:18 2019
Listening on http://127.0.0.1:8005
Document root is /path/to/beanstalk_console/public
Press Ctrl-C to quit.
That's it!