In the previous post, we took a look at how Rebus can use the external timeout service to store timeouts its. The other way of using Rebus’ timeout service, is to use the internal timeout service – that’s right, every Rebus service can function as its own timeout manager.

In fact, the external timeout service is just an ordinary Rebus service that throws exceptions if you send it something that is not a TimeoutRequest.

Since the external timeout service is the default choice, you have to do something in order to enable the internal timeout service. Not much, though – check this out:

Configure it

and like that, your Rebus service will store its timeouts in a table called “timeouts” in the database specified by the given connection string, and it will automatically create the table if it does not exist when it starts up.

Only thing left is to lean back and bus.Defer(tillMañana, yourWorkMan).

First way of using Rebus’ timeout service is to use the default choice, which is the external timeout service. The external timeout service is a Windows service, that you can install – preferably one on each server in your environment – and leave there, running forever.

The timeout service will receive your TimeoutRequests, store them somewhere (preferably in a database of some kind), and then send them back as a TimeoutReply when the timeout has expired.

To get up and running, you can do this:

Get the Rebus source code and build the timeout service

and then go to /Rebus/deploy/NET40/Timeout where you’ll find the binaries.

Configure the timeout service

Currently, the timeout service can store its timeouts in memory, in SQL server, and in MongoDB. The timeout service can be configured by opening up Rebus.Timeout.exe.config and editing the timeout element – e.g. you might write something like this:

or this

depending on your preferences.

Install the service

In an administrator command prompt:

and then, since rebus.timeout is the default queue name for the timeout service, all other local Rebus services can now bus.Defer(toTheFuture, theirMessages).

In the next post, I’ll explain how to configure Rebus to use the internal timeout service.