Implementing Background Jobs & Workers for ASP.NET Core with Hangfire

In one of my projects, my boss asked me a favor to create an automatic sending of reports to his email. Since majority of my web projects are made using ASP.NET Core, fortunately, there is a package available out there that offers background process or workers without the windows service or separate process running. This cool package is Hangfire. Don’t worry folks, it’s “Open and free for commercial use” (Although it offers plans like Startup, Bussiness & Enterprise. read more here).

Some of its cool features are:

Simple
Reliable
Efficient
Persistent
Distributed
Self-maintainable
Transparent
Extensible
and lastly, Open source

Source: hangfire.io

So let’s implement this cool package in our ASP.NET Core Web App.

FTF (First Things First)

Make sure you have a ASP.NET Core project solution (MVC or API) where we can install this package. You can use your existing project if you want but I recommend you create a new fresh sample project for this demo. If you’re ready, let’s get started!

1.0 Installing the Package

1.1 Open the Nuget Package Manager and search for the package Hangfire and click install. So here we have a version 1.7.5

Optionally, you can use the Nuget Package Manager console and type in Install-Package HangFire -Version 1.7.5

1.2 Copy the dist folder content and move it in a folder in Drive C:

In my example, I created a folder with a name “myvueapp” in the path of C:\inetpub\wwwroot and copy and paste all of the files and folders from the dist folder.

2.0 Create web.config file

2.1 Create a web.config file inside the “myvueapp” and paste these codes:

<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”utf-8”?>

2.2 Save the file.

3.0 Create a website on IIS

3.1 Open the IIS app and create a new website under the “Sites” option and name it whatever you prefer. In my example, I name it as “myvuewebsite”. Locate the path of “myvueapp” and specify the specific port that you want.